Chapter 515: Departure

7:43 a. m.

Over seven hundred news channels worldwide had their signals cut off in the same second.

It wasn't a black screen. It was pure black with no static at all, and within that black a single line of white text was flashing.

"Please wait."

Three seconds.

For the full three seconds, anyone on Earth still watching a screen held their breath in that darkness. Some cursed the provider, some thought the Weird Domain had reopened. Until the fourth second, the line of text shattered and the picture lit up.

The camera was a top‑down shot.

A river of steel.

Heavy armored vehicles formed an endless column, crushing the massive alloy gates of the shelter. Their tracks pressed into the broken asphalt, flinging debris to either side. One armored roof after another was lifted, and inside stood not soldiers.

They were the Defiers.

Some were bound head‑to‑toe in black chains, some had translucent ghostly silhouettes hovering behind them, and a young man raised his hand, his entire arm turning into flowing dark water.

An armed helicopter skimmed low over the rooftops, its rotors shredding the morning mist. Hanging beneath its belly was not a missile but a cage sealed by a special containment dome, imprisoning a low‑level Weird tamed by the Investigation Bureau.

Off‑camera is Lord Wei's voice.

Unemotional, concise, each word landing like a hammer on a nail.

"Effective immediately, the Clean World Accord is in force."

"All allied forces worldwide, set aside differences and emerge en masse."

"Target—Gospel Church."

"Erase it from this planet."

The camera finally lingered on a flag. The helicopter's downwash tossed the banner, which bore no pattern, only a simple design: an open eye with fire burning within.

The comment barrage went completely berserk at that moment.

"Whoa… is humanity finally standing up?"

"What's this spectacle, digging up whose ancestral tomb?"

"Don't ask; the answer is the rallying horn of the counter‑offensive."

"We waited a year, and finally we're not hiding!"

"Family, who gets it? I'm crying, really crying."

The live stream's concurrent viewers surpassed a billion within three seconds, servers blared alarms, and the ops guy was yanked from his blankets overnight to add more machines.

For the first time, humanity no longer cowers trembling behind walls.

They voluntarily took that step.

Under the same blood‑red moonlight, on the opposite side of Earth.

An old Gothic cathedral.

Its spire had collapsed halfway, the stained‑glass windows shattered to skeletal frames, vines sprouted from the stone cracks, strangling the stone‑carved angels at the entrance. The whole structure soaked in the Blood Moon's crimson, a sickly, oozing red as if the world itself had been ripped open, blood seeping out.

Inside, the cathedral was brightly lit.

Hundreds of believers knelt packed into the hall, a dense black mass. Their clothes were tattered, eyes hollow, mouths repeatedly chanting the same phrase like a broken loop.

A man stood on the pulpit.

He wore a deep‑blue suit, impeccably pressed with not a wrinkle, even the cuff buttons aligned perfectly. His tie was knotted precisely, and his leather shoes shone enough to reflect a silhouette.

Only his right arm was missing.

Below the empty sleeve, pink flesh buds erupted in waves, writhing and climbing as if a living thing were nesting at the stump. With each surge, he lifted his gaze and furrowed his brow, a look akin to a germ‑phobe spotting dust on a table corner.

Yan Ming.

He grasped a bone‑white Gavel. The gavel struck the stone podium.

Thud.

With that strike, the chanting throughout the hall abruptly stopped.

"Silence."

He spoke, his tone flat with no inflection, clean as if reading a verdict.

"This court is now in session."

The kneeling believers collectively lowered their bodies, foreheads pressed to the ground.

"Among you," Yan Ming's gaze swept the crowd, icy enough to pierce, "every person kneeling here bears a sin."

"If you've ever stolen, raise your hand."

A few trembling hands lifted weakly.

"If you've ever lied, raise your hand."

More hands went up.

"If you've ever hated, cursed, or mentally torn your enemies to pieces—"

Swish.

Almost every hand was raised.

Yan Ming smiled. The smile was faint and gentle, yet colder than the Blood Moon outside the cathedral.

"Very good."

"You are all sick," he raised the Gavel, its bone‑white head glinting coldly in the blood‑red light, "and I am here to cure you."

"May the court bless."

As his words fell, the flesh buds at the stump surged violently.

Countless pink filaments shot out from the empty sleeve, like animated roots, lashing toward the front‑row believers.

Those people did not dodge.

They lifted their faces, opened their mouths, welcoming the strands of flesh that pierced into their bodies, and a near‑divine intoxication rose on their faces.

The moment the fine threads entered the skin, the whites of their eyes rolled up, and a speck of scarlet spark ignited in their pupils.

The kneeling crowd began to tremble, then convulse, and finally… stood up in perfect unison.

Their eyes all turned the same color as Yan Ming's.

"Now," Yan Ming said, patting the non‑existent gray at the hem of his suit—a motion elegant to the point of pathology, "you are clean."

"Go."

He lifted the Gavel, pointing at the church's main doors, then at the city outside, soaked in Blood Moon.

"Go to judgment, those who have not yet been pardoned."

Hundreds of scarlet gazes simultaneously turned outward.

Atop the church, the clock tower that had long been abandoned.

The rusted great bell hung overhead, its rope snapped, half‑hanging, swaying back and forth in the wind.

At the edge of the breach atop the clock tower, a figure stood.

A dark‑red shirt, a vintage black suit, over a long coat billowing from the wind. He wore a deep‑gray Rock Mask, featureless except for two black holes.

He leaned on a black staff, its tip set with an eyeball.

The eyeball was still alive, rattling as it turned, fixated on the grand "Blessing" in the hall below, turning with glee.

Sai Men.

He stood with his foot on the edge of the clock tower, half his body hovering over the void, yet as steady as if welded there. Blood Moon stretched his Shadow long, casting it onto the mottled clock wall.

Footsteps came from the Stairway Entrance.

A believer climbed up, kneeling on one knee, head bowed low, daring not even to breathe.

"Lord Sai Men," his throat dry, "Investigation Bureau… Investigation Bureau has taken action."

Sai Men did not turn around.

"Oh?" he replied lazily, the eyeball at the staff's tip turning to fix on the kneeling man.

"They… they have activated some 'Clean World Accord,'" the believer's shoulders trembled, "Global forces are gathering—armored vehicles, helicopters, and… and many Deceivers. They say they will erase us…"

"They say they will wipe the Gospel Church off this planet completely."

The clock tower fell silent.

Wind blew through the breach, rushing in, making the hem of Sai Men's suit rustle.

The Living Eyeball halted, staring fixedly at the believer.

The believer trembled even more. He thought the Prophet would rage, order preparations for war, and tear the messenger apart on the spot in fury.

But not.

Sai Men slowly, slowly raised the hand that was not holding the staff.

He covered his face.

He covered the Gray Mask that had no features to begin with.

His shoulders began to twitch repeatedly.

At first it was light, as if holding something back. Then it grew larger, more exaggerated, and his whole body quivered along.

"Pfft...... haha......"

He laughed.

He laughed out loud.

The laugh leaked from beneath the mask, at first suppressed, then completely unblocked, sharp and keen, ricocheting through the empty clock tower, startling several roosting crows on the beams into frantic flight.

Hahaha—

Sai Men laughed so hard his back could not stay straight; leaning on his staff he barely avoided falling off the clock tower. The Eyeball Staff swung wildly from his laughter, and the eyeball bounced up and down, as if dancing to the merriment.

"Erase… they said they want to erase?"

Sai Men finally caught his breath, words squeezing out between his fingers, tone light and airy, carrying a near‑childlike glee.

"Heh, remarkable, remarkable."

"The little mouse that hid for so long finally agreed to leave its hole today."

He lowered his hand and turned around.

The two black holes on the Gray Mask aligned with the trembling believer kneeling on the ground.

"Do you know?" Sai Men crouched, using the tip of his staff to lift the believer's chin; the Living Eyeball was less than half a foot from the believer's face, "This is my favorite kind of show."

"A group of people who think they have already won, charging in with swagger—"

He paused, and the tone beneath the mask suddenly softened to a sickly sweetness.

"Then, watching helplessly as hope shatters inch by inch before one's eyes."

"That face… more appetizing than any delicacy."

The believer's teeth chattered; he could not utter a single word.

Sai Men released the staff, stood up, and walked back to the edge of the clock tower.

He spread his arms, facing the red light of Blood Moon, the hem of his suit flapping in the wind, looking like a gentleman strolling back from a hellish banquet.

Below, the blessed believers surged out of the church doors, eyes reddened, rushing toward the sleeping city.

Further away, a torrent of steel rolled across the ground, pressing toward this side.

Two forces, under the blood‑colored sky, were rapidly closing in.

Sai Men lowered his head, gazing at the boiling chessboard beneath his feet; the curve beneath the mask could no longer be hidden.

"Let the show begin."

He whispered.

The Living Eyeball turned eastward, turned toward the direction where the steel river surged, turning with great delight.

"Ladies and gentlemen..."

"But please don't blink."

The wind grew stronger.

The broken bell swayed overhead, emitting a deep, muffled echo that no one had struck.

And in the crevice where the Blood Moon and steel were about to collide, no one noticed, in the distant Qiu Ce Yuan infirmary, beside the windowsill with a pot of white orchids—

Chu Che put down the spray bottle he was holding.

He lifted his hand, nudged his gold‑thread‑rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting the faint fish‑belly white that had just begun to show outside the window.

"The duplicate... still so hard to deal with."

He whispered, a faint smile at his lips gentle as if uttering an insignificant domestic remark.

But beneath those eyes was an unfathomable calm.

Beneath the calm, the player watched the two pieces he had placed himself, finally about to collide fiercely at the exact center of the board—

That almost greedy anticipation.