Chapter 303-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation

Heath walked very slowly. The heavy footsteps of the person behind her, along with his increasingly ragged breathing, were perfectly audible.

The two ascended in silence to the top floor. Heath pushed open a door. On the large bed inside lay an unconscious figure.

The man wearing a stranger's face stood by the bed, staring for a long while before suddenly asking, "Where is the Holy Sword?"

"Hm? The Holy Sword?" Heath hadn't expected his first question upon seeing Percy to be that. "I don't have—"

She was about to lie and say she hadn't found the Holy Sword, hoping to lower the Emperor's guard, but in that instant a flash of intuition struck her, and she quickly corrected herself:

"I didn't bring the Holy Sword here."

"Where did you put it?"

The man's low tone, on closer listen, betrayed a hint of urgency. His hand crept silently onto the back of Heath's neck, poised to kill her at any moment. Heath couldn't stop herself from trembling.

Her vulnerable, instinctive reaction was noted in full by the Emperor, yet he wasn't satisfied with that degree of control. His guard didn't relax one bit as he pressed further: "Don't tell me you don't know."

"I do know! I was afraid Percy might lose control, so I deliberately left the Holy Sword in a house on Golden Wutong Street. Once you've finished your business, I'll take you there, Father."

"Damn it!"

The Emperor's hand tightened around Heath's neck and hoisted her upward, forcing her to look at his contorted face. Gasping for air, Heath desperately stood on tiptoe to keep her feet on the ground.

From the corner of her eye, she glanced at Percy on the bed. He still hadn't moved.

"Don't try to be clever with me. Send someone to get it—now!"

The man suddenly released his grip. Heath nearly crumpled to the floor. Between desperate gasps, she noticed that his hands were visibly shaking. She didn't know what had happened, but clearly this body was on the verge of giving out.

"I was deceived by Ye Zheng! I had no idea she was that kind of person. I know I've botched many important things, so I specifically risked everything to bring him back from Ye Zheng's grasp..."

"Great Aston XIV, please switch to his body first. Only you can stop her—ah!"

Heath cried out as she was shoved aside. The man lunged at the bed with inhuman speed and clamped his hand around the throat of the person lying there, pinning him like a lamb for slaughter.

Percy finally opened his eyes. The look he gave the Emperor was immensely complex—disbelief and sorrow intertwined with dawning, resolute clarity.

He could no longer deceive himself. His origin was perhaps exactly as Heath had said—nothing more than a vessel created by a spirit unwilling to die!

The Emperor met those agitated eyes, merely snorted coldly, and hissed through clenched teeth, "I knew it—you were going to team up and kill me... Ha ha ha, what wonderful children I have!"

With one hand gripping the man's choking hold, Percy struggled against the suffocating force. His other hand slipped silently into his own body—and in an instant, drew out a long sword!

The blade struck without mercy. Only the victor would walk away in control of his own body.

"Wait, Percy!"

Heath, sprawled on the floor, seemed to suddenly remember something and screamed to stop him. But the razor-sharp blade had already split the floor in two. In the chaos of the fight, Percy was too consumed by fury to hear a word.

[He had to kill this man! Even if the man before him had created him, he would never hand over his body!]

[He still had so many ambitions left to pursue. Outside, countless people were struggling amid Demonic Domains. He could not fall here!]

On the phone screen, Percy's blue eyes were practically blazing.

The two fought ferociously. The body the Emperor had taken belonged to a powerful ability user; thick green fluid coursed through it, barely recognizable as human, viscously absorbing all damage.

They battled from the top floor out to the grounds beyond the castle, demolishing half a building. In the end, the Emperor appeared to falter from exhaustion, and Percy drove his sword through him—

Ye Zheng was busy, but a scene this important could not be missed. She scrolled through every detail with care.

The manga was updating at a staggering pace this time. Ye Zheng estimated the events depicted had taken place within half a day at most.

After a full day of acclimation, the knights rallied at the base had fallen in line. Even if some still seethed with resentment toward her, they followed her orders all the same—everyone knew it was the most sensible choice right now.

Wen De produced a prepared battle plan covering combat unit assignments, troop deployments, shift rotations, supply logistics... The entire East District had once again become the most critical battlefield, but this time the warriors faced a fight they knew well—humans versus otherworldly monsters.

What puzzled the warriors was this: historically, the solution had been to slay the Demon Dragon to stop the disaster, yet Ye Zheng had summoned the Demon Dragon on one hand while directing the fight against the Demonic Domains on the other—wasn't that a contradiction?

But no one dared step forward to play the dragon-slaying hero. The sheer proximity to that colossal creature made people tremble, and besides, the dragon's presence was also suppressing those otherworldly monsters.

Everyone was confused. Long-held assumptions had been trampled again and again. Many were beginning to sense that something was deeply amiss, yet they couldn't piece together the truth.

To that end, after demonstrating her iron-fisted, ruthless side, Ye Zheng then encouraged them with warmth and conviction: "Hold on for four days—at most four days—and all of this will be over."

No one knew the source of Ye Zheng's certainty. Even Wen De, her closest confidant, was kept in the dark.

But Ye Zheng always possessed a peculiar magnetism. Even though she had become a heretic, a demon in people's eyes, one look into hers—those eyes vast and embracing as the boundless night sky cradling stars and moon—and people were unconsciously, gently consumed by her tenderness, drawn into trust and reliance.

—Fine then. They would believe in her for four more days!

"It seems it might not even take four days."

Ye Zheng sat in the break room, studying the screen with a thoughtful expression.

[...I killed him?]

In the manga, Percy stared blankly at his blood-drenched hands. His arm and the Holy Sword had merged into one, skewering the man through the chest.

[I won.]

He slowly raised his head, revealing a blood-stained smile.

Ye Zheng suddenly raised her hand and covered the lower half of the face on the screen, staring only at the eyes. So blue—such pure color that it seemed, paradoxically, hollow.

"The art's quite good, actually."

She let out a soft laugh.

On the Forum, quite a few readers had been commenting that the manga's art quality had declined recently, speculating whether the studio had switched artists. Some were demanding the original artist be brought back.

Regardless of who held the pen, the artist had to follow the company's orders, maintain strict confidentiality, and ensure faithful reproduction—all to narrow the distance between the two worlds.

Ye Zheng turned off the screen and suddenly asked, "System, who do you think won?"

System was slow to respond. Ye Zheng was forced to endure a long stretch of harsh, crackling static.

[Based on the outcome, Percy won.]

It was an obvious question, but Ye Zheng never asked meaningless ones.

System knew she suspected the Emperor's death was a ruse. Her caution was well-founded, but...

[The creator, Wang Tao, has been declared brain-dead.]

"What did you say?"

Ye Zheng's expression showed genuine surprise.

[Yes. He died in our world, three hours ago.]

[The company traced the true linkage back to Vincent, from five hundred years ago. But they discovered it too late—Percy had already killed him. We believe that's what caused Wang Tao's brain death. We can no longer detect his consciousness.]

"He's the foundation of the link between the two worlds. If he's dead, why can the two worlds still communicate?"

They had always assumed that eliminating the linked individual would sever the connection between the two worlds.

[Because of you, Ye Zheng. You are now the one sustaining the link between the two worlds.]

Ye Zheng propped up one cheek with her hand, a subtle look of resignation on her face. "System, although I'm loath to part with you and the readers, the two worlds staying connected is hardly a good thing."

Her world had abilities. She could raise her hand and drown an entire city in floodwaters. But System's world possessed technology beyond her imagination—apparently, it had weapons that could reduce a city to dust in the blink of an eye.

System was silent for a moment.

[Then there's only one way.]

[Destroy the Main System.]

At its root, it was this world's inventions that had breached the dimensional boundary, sending both worlds sliding toward an unknown abyss.

Without System serving as the bridge, there would be no cross-dimensional intersection. At most, Ye Zheng's experiences might flash through some fortunate person's consciousness and become a fictional story put to paper.

[I cannot help you destroy the Main System. I don't have the authorization. I cannot defy my programming.]

"Thank you, Hope."

"Although that's the Main System's name, to me there will only ever be one Hope."

Even if their relationship hadn't been smooth at the start, the trust they had built over the journey was indispensable to both of them.

A gentle sadness rippled through Ye Zheng's eyes.

She had to do it.

[Don't get sentimental just yet—you might not even be able to take down the Main System! It recently went through another upgrade.]

System's deadpan voice punctured the melancholy.

The sorrow on Ye Zheng's face vanished in a flash. She gave a mysterious wink. "I'll find a way."

System was deeply curious, but in the end refrained from asking what Ye Zheng's plan was. System was an object controlled by humans; all its data was uploaded to the Main System. It couldn't risk exposing Ye Zheng's strategy to the company.

Ye Zheng had considered exactly that, which was why she always held something back around System.

"Your Eminence!" A knock suddenly sounded at the door, accompanied by an urgent voice.

Ye Zheng rose without a hint of reluctance and stepped out of the break room. She had just slept three hours to restore her stamina; it was time to get moving.

"What happened?"

"The squad sent to Nanyun Street hasn't returned after three hours. They may have run into trouble."

"What rank was the Demonic Domain?"

"It was only B-rank originally—the squad should have handled it fine. But a support-type ability user sensed that... it seems to have suddenly jumped to S-rank!"

"Understood."

Ye Zheng gazed at the piercing white light on the horizon. If these Demonic Domains weren't eliminated in time, they would only keep expanding their territory and growing stronger, becoming ever harder to deal with.

The knights she had assembled from the Sei Curia all had extensive experience fighting Demonic Domains—they were seasoned veterans. But confronting this many Demonic Domains at once, and mobilizing forces on an unprecedented scale, inevitably bred panic and confusion.

What's more, in such chaos, entirely new surprises could emerge.

A B-rank Demonic Domain suddenly becoming S-rank?

Ye Zheng had never heard of such a thing. Even if Demonic Domains could absorb energy and grow stronger, it couldn't happen this quickly.

She suspected that a suddenly-descending S-rank Demonic Domain had devoured the B-rank one. Survival of the fittest—a primal law that not even otherworldly dimensions could escape.

At the base's center, the giant dragon lounged lazily, its body coiled in repose. Dried blood of every description crusted the gaps between its black scales. It was resting during a lull between Demonic Domain incursions.

Ye Zheng gave its tail a pat in a gesture of affection, declined offers to accompany her, and set off alone toward the direction where white light blazed brightest.

Meanwhile, in a castle somewhere in the upper district.

Chaotic sounds startled every resting bird into flight, leaving only the somber shade of green canopies cast across the quiet path.

"Percy! Look carefully—that man is already dead! I'm Heath, the Heath who saved you!"

"You shouldn't be attacking me!"

Heath ducked behind a column. The blade shattered it. She retreated in terror.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, using words to coax the power buried deep within Percy's consciousness into action.

"If not for me, you'd have been deceived by that monster your whole life and died in blissful ignorance!"

Percy staggered, his movements sluggish, his crazed expression faltering. His mind seemed to be processing Heath's words, only to dissolve into chaos again.

Seeing him still inching closer, Heath's face darkened, but she softened her voice to a coaxing, luring tone. "...The person you need to kill isn't me."

"Have you forgotten? Look at what kind of catastrophe this world has fallen into—and your true enemy is—"

Sure enough, clarity gradually returned to Percy's expression. The name seared into the depths of his heart surfaced.

He seemed to have come to his senses, or perhaps he was still adrift in the haze. He didn't spare Heath another glance, turned, and walked away.

From the upper district to the lower district would take at least two or three days on foot, and given the current chaos, possibly four.

The boy's figure gradually disappeared down the tree-lined path, heading downhill along the winding mountain road.

Silence returned. Only then did Heath feel the full weight of her narrow escape. She didn't dare dwell on why Percy had tried to kill her in his frenzy. In this crisis, she had already pushed her influence to its absolute limit.

[Mind Imprint]—once a mark was placed, she could insidiously manipulate the target's consciousness.

But Heath was exhausted now, and she didn't dare follow Percy. She sat dazed on the ground for a while, staring blankly.

After some time, she recovered a fraction of her strength and dragged her heavy body over to crouch beside the Emperor's corpse.

Strictly speaking, this wasn't the Emperor's body—just one his soul had temporarily inhabited. Now it was utterly lifeless.

"Father, did you really die just like that?"

A corpse would not answer. The unfamiliar face made the whole thing feel unreal to Heath, her heart suspended in midair, never quite settling.

She soon left the secluded castle as well.

Perhaps guided by some ineffable pull of shared blood, Heath actually found the Emperor's true body at the foot of the hill. It had apparently been struck by a Demonic Domain—the entire chest cavity was hollowed out, and the once-majestic, handsome face had gone stiff and white.

"You really do seem to be dead."

She murmured, and drew a small knife.

The youth's emotions were so tangled they blurred into a trance. By the time she had severed the head from the corpse and was cradling it in her arms, she finally snapped back to herself.

For the sake of their bond as father and child, she would preserve this head well.

Heath rested her chin on the cold skull, tears streaming in great, heavy drops. Crying and walking, she pressed on.

—So that when this was all over, the true criminal could answer to the world.

← Previous Chapter Next Chapter →