Chapter 90: Dao Fan Tian Gang

After a brief darkness, Wu Chang's vision brightened again, and he found himself in the center of Riverbend Town.

More accurately, he was not physically present in reality, but had entered a memory, as if watching a vision from resentment.

Yet this memory did not come from the dead's resentment, but from the bishop's mental afterimage.

"Special State: Mental Afterimage"

"State Description: Enter the target's inner depths, peering into its most secret secrets; exploring and destroying the mental afterimage can destabilize the target's will."

Wu Chang hadn't expected the bishop to be so impressive in appearance but so weak in substance.

Ascetics typically renounce worldly pleasures and desires, refining themselves through crude or primitive living, proving their devotion through spiritual and physical suffering.

The more arduous the cultivation, the stronger the will, and the more devout the faith.

Logically, as the embodiment of ascetics in everyone's eyes, the bishop's will and insight should both be exceptionally high.

Yet the bishop was even weaker than Professor Ebett—his two attributes combined were below 20% of Wu Chang's, triggering the special state.

Tsk tsk tsk, his heart isn't sincere.

Drawing on his rich experience examining resentment, Wu Chang quickly adapted to the mental afterimage.

When examining resentment, he usually had two perspectives.

One was a complete third-person view, like a fixed camera, observing the entire event unfold.

The other, after repeatedly reviewing resentment multiple times and leveraging high insight, allowed him to embody the resentment's owner, shifting to first-person view.

The first-person view let him feel the victim's final sensations and uncover secrets invisible from the third-person perspective.

For instance, when entering the Moonlight Sanatorium, he had used the magician's first-person view to spot Ginton in the corridor.

But the mental afterimage differed from both resentment perspectives.

In the mental afterimage, he was a completely independent entity, free to move and explore, not fixed within the owner's body or any camera position.

He had not merged into this memory, but had entered it as an external "intruder."

This sensation was novel; seizing the temporary peace within the afterimage fragment, he explored the town center within the bishop's memory.

Perhaps because he had not seen the world in too long, or perhaps due to deep aversion to this memory, the streets in the bishop's recollection deviated wildly from reality.

What had once been orderly streets, as if copied from the same mold, now featured houses of varying heights and widths, some upside-down, others floating in midair.

Everything on the streets appeared twisted and chaotic.

Soon, he heard footsteps approaching from all directions.

The townspeople moved like the bishop's distorted houses—like glitching programs, popping out from every corner.

Running forward, running backward, standing upside-down, rolling, crawling on their backs with limbs bent backward…

Each townsman displayed bizarre motions, sprinting toward the square before the cathedral.

All townspeople shared one trait: they had no faces.

Wu Chang followed beside them, arriving at the square.

Before the faceless statue of the Great Mother stood a towering pyre.

Bound atop the pyre was a black figure like a matchstick, all its features obscured by the bishop's memory.

Amid the townspeople's crowd, the bishop, eyes wide open, stepped forward, one hand on the holy scripture, one finger pointing at the altar, declaring loudly: "In the name of the Divine, I hereby sentence the guilty to death by fire!"

After pronouncing the sentence, his eyelashes transformed into iron wires lined with barbs, sewing his eyes shut.

Hearing the bishop's verdict, the townspeople erupted in jubilation.

Each held a glowing coal, stepping forward one by one to toss it onto the pyre.

As the flames grew fiercer, the townspeople screamed, their own bodies igniting.

As if the black figure bound to the pyre were not some heretic, but themselves.

The instant the flames consumed the black shadow, every townsman and the entire town burst into fire.

The world plunged into a sea of flame.

Wu Chang scanned around—the flames within the bishop's mental afterimage, including the glowing coals held by the townspeople, were all one emotion: envy.

As the townspeople burned others with the fire of envy, they themselves were consumed by it.

The mental afterimage ended—like certain Japanese films, the world froze, leaving only him able to move.

He now knew what the bishop's mental afterimage recorded.

If he guessed correctly, the matchstick figure bound to the pyre was the missing Holy Maiden he had been searching for.

I have to say, the islanders of Brifu Island really know how to have fun.

They worshipped the Ganzhi Sect Sect themselves, yet captured the Holy Maiden who came to preach on the island and condemned her as a heretic.

This was "Dao Fan Tian Gang"—where could one even appeal?

He took from his personal space a crystal necklace; the white crystal pendant at its end now floated upward, emitting faint glimmers, pointing toward the black shadow on the pyre.

"Item Name: Blessing of the Great Mother"

"Item Type: Special"

"Item Description: A pendant blessed by the Great Mother, designed to protect the Holy Maiden through peril; it is the Divine gift bestowed upon the Holy Maiden as her coming-of-age rite. It reacts when near the Holy Maiden or a Holy Scar."

This pendant was the quest-guiding item he received upon accepting the hidden side quest.

During his time delivering mail, he had traversed nearly every region of Riverbend Island—the pendant had never reacted.

Yet now, within the bishop's mental afterimage, it had responded.

Seeing the Holy Maiden in someone else's memory counts as finding her? Is it really this easy? If the bishop's memory was accurate, the real Holy Maiden should be long dead—by now, her corpse could have fertilized a crop that had already yielded its first harvest.

Can this item even work when used within a memory?

Could the Holy Maiden's existence be a concept, not bound to a physical form? Whatever—since the quest guide told him to do it, he might as well try.

He found a standing lampstand inside the cathedral and used it to sweep away the piled firewood beneath the pyre.

He dragged out the matchstick figure—charred on the outside, charred on the inside, more than thoroughly cooked—and placed the "Blessing of the Great Mother" upon her.

When he had first received the hidden quest, he had tried wearing this necklace, but at the time nothing happened.

The instant the stick figure touched the necklace, a burst of holy light erupted, shattering the charred shell that had been roasted onto the stick figure's surface.

Beneath the charred shell appeared a young girl in white, whose very appearance inspired a sense of utter sanctity.

Her features were so exquisite they did not seem those of a living person; even the Great Mother—painted by countless generations of the era's greatest artists in church oil paintings, refined again and again—would pale beside her.

That breathtaking beauty made Wu Chang think of someone: Christina Yeri.

The young girl's body was as white as snow, like the finest porcelain; to leave even the slightest speck of filth upon her would be an unforgivable crime.

But on so perfect a being, glaring fish scales grew over sensitive areas such as her chest and lower abdomen.

Which bastard made her eat a Golden Flying Fish! Wu Chang was purely angry because the Golden Flying Fish was addictive—natives of this plane who ate it would be hooked on the fish-craving for life, never able to shake it off.

No other meaning.

The saint reverted from the stick figure back to her true form, and the bishop's mindscape echo shattered.

The topsy-turvy, chaotic streets faded away along with it.

After the mindscape echo shattered, Wu Chang did not return to the real world, but arrived once more at a different small town's central district.

Similar to the starting point when he had first entered the mindscape echo, this time the town's buildings had returned to reality, no longer so glitched and disordered.

But a great fire had spread out from the cathedral, turning the entire central district of the town into a sea of flames.

Within the bishop's sewn-shut eyes lay not only the connection to his mindscape echo, but also the gate leading to the world of Envy.

Looking at the flames burning all around him, and at the townsfolk gathering toward him, Wu Chang once again slung on the "Postman's Delivery Pack."

He had just finished eating sashimi, and now he was about to take on a little barbecue.

At this rate, he'd be over-nourished.

(End of this chapter)