Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

Chapter 337: Chapter 336: The Gradually Chaotic Forest (IV)

Chapter 337: Chapter 336: The Gradually Chaotic Forest (IV)

After that, the nymph also brought others over, and the cruel scene before them quite shocked the girls. Although the Little Fire Dragon’s Time Retrospection could heal wounds on the living, it couldn’t bring the dead back to life. Thus, the elves who had died due to the goblins’ atrocities naturally couldn’t be revived.

Since his own team’s girls had arrived, Fang Zheng naturally left the care of these elves to them, given that the elves were still naked; as a man, he wouldn’t even know where to begin helping. It was better to leave it to the girls, while Fang Zheng began to search the entire cave, trying to find some clues or something of the sort.

Unfortunately, Fang Zheng busied himself for a long time and still found nothing in the cave, which was normal. The goblins, a species as intellectually challenged as not understanding that one plus one equals two, who would be foolish enough to send them orders by letter?

In the entire cave, besides the bodies of the goblins, there were only some spoils of war stripped off from elves or other victims, and bones left over from their meals… In the end, Fang Zheng returned empty-handed.

“Did you find anything, Mr. Fang Zheng?”

When Fang Zheng walked out of the cave, Fina hurriedly came forward to ask, but Fang Zheng shook his head.

“Just some junk and the elves’ belongings, didn’t find anything useful.”

Speaking to this point, Fang Zheng glanced at the nymph, and sensing Fang Zheng’s gaze, the nymph closed her eyes to sense her surroundings, then shook her head slightly at Fang Zheng.

There was nothing nearby.

Having received the nymph’s response, Fang Zheng nodded. He was no fool, having learned from that elven maiden that there was someone behind the goblins., he had the nymph activate full-spectrum radar search mode to prevent that shadow from catching them off guard again. But now, it seemed, that concern could be temporarily set aside.

So the next question was, what exactly was that shadow.

Honestly, Fang Zheng was not entirely clueless about this.

According to the elven maiden’s statement, they had suddenly fainted after seeing that shadow. Within the School of Illusions, there were a few high-tier spells capable of this effect, but since Fang Zheng specialized in Prophecy and had given up on Illusion Techniques, he couldn’t determine it right away. However, if he had to guess, Fang Zheng leaned towards another possibility.

According to the elven maiden’s account, they felt overwhelming and almost uncontrollable fear before they fainted. Besides spells, in Fang Zheng’s memory, there was only one other method that could achieve this, in fact, Fang Zheng himself could do it.

Dragon Might.

As a Young Dragon, if Fang Zheng fully unleashed his Dragon Might in front of those mortals in the Fire Dragon World, they would experience the same symptoms as the elves and would faint from excessive fear, or even suffer a mental breakdown. The problem was, that is a world without any magic, and those people were merely ordinary mortals. Even though the elves in the Main World had better magic resistance than humans, though not as nearly magic immune as dwarves, they could not normally be affected by mere Dragon Might.

The fact that elves with high magic resistance fell into a coma without even facing it suggests that if the other party really was a dragon, it was definitely not just any ordinary dragon, and it might not even be an adult dragon, but…

Anyway, thinking about this now is pointless.

Fang Zheng shook his head, dismissing the thoughts from his mind. He hadn’t yet encountered any of the Dragon Race in this world, although he had learned about them from the books in the White Tower; however, those were just records. In reality, dragons from the Main World rarely appeared before mortals. They would occasionally transform into human form to travel with adventurers, or secretly observe the rise and fall of a country. Of course, there were also some evil dragons who would come out to faithfully play the role they were supposed to play…

“How are those elves doing?”

“They are very weary, and their spirits have suffered a great deal. I have already cast calming and soothing divine arts on them, at least… at least this will allow them to rest well for a while.”

Speaking to this point, Fina looked somewhat downcast; even though everything had been settled by Fang Zheng by the time they arrived, these girls were not fools—just by looking at the state of those elves, and the dreadful condition of the deceased elves, they could guess what had happened here.

“Also, I found something very strange… the magic power inside these elves… it seems…”

Speaking to this point, Fina seemed a bit at a loss for words.

“It seems… completely drained, as if they all had cast a massive spell collectively; now their extreme weariness, half of it is due to the excessive depletion of their magic power. But I asked that elven lady, and she was very sure that they hadn’t cast any spells today.”

“Oh? That’s odd.”

Hearing this, Fang Zheng furrowed his brow, but then he didn’t say much more.

“Let’s go have a look first, anyway.”

At that moment, the elves had been moved out of the cave by the young girls, and with the help of Fina and others, they had changed into ordinary robes and boots, which were spare items the girls carried during their travels. Fortunately, elves have slender physiques compared to humans, so these clothes fit them quite well.

At present, the elves were resting against tree trunks, submerged in a silent slumber.

Meanwhile, a few other elves were covered in white cloths and placed by the river on the other side. They were the ones brutally murdered by the goblins. Right now, Fang Zheng saw the three elf sisters, one big and two small, whom he had rescued from the cave, kneeling before these bodies and praying in a low voice, and he could even faintly hear their sobs.

“I think I can understand their sorrow,” he said.

Fina, holding her staff, stood quietly next to Fang Zheng, her eyes complex as she watched this scene from a distance.

“I have had a similar experience when, just like any other day, I bid farewell to my friends for a routine patrol, and then suddenly we were worlds apart… In comparison, it’s easier to accept death on the battlefield against cultists, because by then, everyone is psychologically prepared. But now…”

Fina did not continue, but Fang Zheng understood what she meant. It’s like in modern times, if you’re killed by a stray bullet on a chaotic battlefield, it’s not surprising, but if you go out to buy groceries and then accidentally get involved in a car accident, it’s hard for your family and friends to accept this fact.

“Why is that?”

At this moment, Katie’s voice came from the side. Although she was still concealing her form, Fang Zheng and Fina could hear the sadness and questioning in her tone.

“Why are those evil creatures allowed to exist in this world? Isn’t the Goddess of Order a good deity? Why does she allow such creatures to live in a world of order?”

“This…”

Facing Katie’s question, Fina opened her mouth but ultimately said nothing. Instead, Fang Zheng squinted into the distance.

“Order does not differentiate between good and evil. In fact, nothing is born with a destiny to do something. Angels and demons are both part of order, just like humans, but there are also good and bad people among humans. Wolves are cunning and ferocious animals; to rabbits, they’re no different from demons. The same goes for these goblins; they are indeed evil and as despicable as rats in a gutter, but they are still part of this world…”

“So… how do we distinguish between good and bad?”

“It’s simple,” Fang Zheng said, his lips slightly curving.

“It all comes down to your own choices.”

“My own… choices?”

“Exactly. Just like humans, no one dictates that humans must be good people of the Order Faction from birth. You can choose to be a good person, or you can choose to be a villain. You can become a mass-murdering assassin, or you can become a cleric who saves the world. You can indulge in pleasures, or you can strive to improve yourself. You can choose to fight for order, or you can learn from those cultists and become a minion of chaos. It’s all about your own choices, your own decisions. Order does not bind your will, even if you’re born the same, based on the same grounds, different outcomes will occur.”

At this point, Fang Zheng spread his hands.

“The same applies to these goblins. They chose this path, so it’s destined that they will one day be eradicated by someone, just like what I did. And I also chose this path, so I killed those goblins and rescued the victims. If I had chosen to be selfish, I could have pretended to see nothing, avoided trouble, and walked away without caring about the lives of these elves. They might have been tortured to death by those goblins, or perhaps they would’ve been rescued by their companions. These are all choices—the choices of you, me, and everyone. That’s life.”

Hearing Fang Zheng’s words, Katie fell silent, and Fina, too, gripped her staff tightly before she lifted her head to look at Fang Zheng.

In her eyes, there was a kind of determined will.

“Then, Mr. Fang Zheng, what if one makes the wrong choice?”

“There are no wrong choices in this world. Some people dream of saving the world, and some just want to see the world burn. Correctness or incorrectness isn’t the point. What others see as right might not be seen as such by you, and what you consider right might be meaningless to others,” Fang Zheng responded, shrugging his shoulders.

“The point is, they must accept the consequences of their choices, just like that.”