13 Mink Street

Rain began falling from the dark clouds above Torathos’s head.

The rain poured down over its enormous body, flowing along it before streaming down. From afar, a terrifying existence had appeared at the edge of the town. If painted as a still image, it could be named Despair, but if the rain were made to move, it would be Mercy.

The rain also fell upon Tafmann and Zimar, who had collapsed upon the turtle shell.

Tafmann changed his posture. A moment ago, he had been sitting with one hand braced against the ground, face numb as he awaited the arrival of final suffering. Now he dropped to both knees.

One fist clenched tightly. Tears once more slipped uncontrollably from his eyes.

This Darkmoon general, the same man who just nights earlier had killed without blinking, who had severed his nephew’s head and kicked it like a ball, wept twice today.

The first time was when he had placed the power of Light upon Torathos’s brow, and the beast had responded with warmth and joy. It was the kind of warmth reserved for its kin. Yet even as Tafmann had soothed the beast, he had encouraged that the ritual array on its head be finished, intending to blow the creature apart before it reached town.

Light could serve as a converter between different powers, but it could also be a bridge between emotions.

No matter how cold or cruel a person might seem, that was merely because the shell around them had grown harder. As long as one was still human, somewhere deep inside there would remain a small place that was soft. And Tafmann himself, after all, belonged to the Light.

This second time, through the falling rain, he felt sorrow.

Just as Tafmann believed the town was about to be destroyed, that countless ordinary people would be trampled in the coming catastrophe, that once the corruption spilled forth, the once-beautiful Darkmoon Island would become a land of blight and curses—

It stopped. This rain was Torathos’s tears. This was the place where its old companions had once lived and built their lives.

Darkmoon Island no longer possessed the Light, yet within its prosperity today, there still remained the shadow of Light.

***

“Why are you crying? I’m asking you, why are you crying, Torathos!” After a brief silence, the captain’s phantom burst out in accusation. “Torathos, tell me, what are you crying for? Move forward. Advance! Use your feet to crush everything before you. Use their screams to honor the betrayal we once suffered!”

The captain began waving his arms in fury. “What are you crying for here? Your mercy, at a time like this, does it not look laughable?

“Take one more step. Spew your lava. Let the traitors and their descendants taste the grievance and rage we once endured! Torathos, forward! Torathos, forward!”

Karon watched as the captain’s phantom gradually slipped into hysteria, as though his soul itself were twisting.

“You are a deep-sea giant turtle. You are a Bursac variant. Savagery is your nature. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten?”

“It is our companion.”

“What nonsense are you talking about? No, am I not you right now? Why are you suddenly speaking again?”

“Am I you? Or have you lost yourself? Have you fallen under my control?”

At first, the captain’s shouting and urging had seemed natural enough. From Karon’s perspective, the man was simply unwilling to let matters end here so abruptly, but what followed, the exchange that came from the phantom, sounded far more like the captain was arguing with himself.

It seemed the captain himself had also sensed something wrong. The puppet doll floating there fell to the ground, and the captain’s projected phantom ended here.

What’s happened to the captain? Has something gone wrong?

Karon immediately turned to Ophelia and pointed west, “You search that way. I’ll search the other side. He’s trying to influence and interfere with Torathos. We have to stop him!”

Ophelia woke from her daze. She quickly nodded, then drew her long sword and began searching in the indicated direction.

Karon took a piece of black paper from his pocket and crumpled it into a ball. When he opened his hand again, a black crow flew up and led him forward.

Karon soon found the captain standing beneath a hollow. He had deliberately sent Ophelia away, wanting to see what state the captain was in now.

“Is this not the vengeance you wanted, Phileas?”

“Is this the vengeance I wanted?” the captain asked himself in return.

“Is it not?”

“If you were certain you were moving from my perspective, then why can I still make my own voice?”

“You are guiding me into derangement, heh heh heh.”

“Nio.”

“What?”

“I am already dead. Beneath the sea, when you arrived at that cave, I had died long before even that. I have been dead for a very, very long time.”

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

“You ate me. Did you fuse with me?”

“Did I not?”

“But have you ever considered that when you ate me, what you absorbed was only my memories, because I had long since died? In truth, I had no soul.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that, for these last ten years, you have not been fighting me. You have only been fighting yourself. I, Phileas, died long ago. When a person dies, they cease to exist.”

“You think I’d believe anything you say?”

“You absorbed my memories, and in your heart, you split off a version of me, but that me is actually just a part of yourself. Your struggle was not meaningless, but you were never struggling against me.

“Karon, you should know what I said is correct.”

Nio turned his head and looked at Karon standing beside him.

Karon spread his hands. “The current condition is too complicated. For now, I cannot make a diagnosis.”

“Very cautious. I have always admired your caution. Nio has always admired this about you as well. Do you know? A person like you can live a long time. The greatest enemy of geniuses is their lifespan. Lifespan restrains the development of a genius, but when a genius is willing to be cautious and hide himself, as his lifespan lengthens, he can better realize his talent.”

Karon spoke again, “I don’t think now is the time to talk about me.”

“Yes, indeed. Your captain, in order not to fall into derangement, in order to preserve himself, has already gone from one extreme to the other.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is that not so, Nio? On Snake Island, when you saw Genevieve’s corpse inside that coffin, was the rage and sense of derangement that you triggered caused by me? No. It was because you thought of Miss Elisa.

“Although Bernard was introduced to me by Genevieve, the one who truly decided to reach a cooperation agreement with Bernard was me. It was also because I did not take sufficient precautions that Bernard found his chance to betray us. I once had the opportunity to establish an organization of Light on Darkmoon Island, but at the time, I felt it was unnecessary. I did not do it. I even took it for granted that Darkmoon Island’s future would witness the friendship between Light and Darkmoon.

“In the end, it was my stupidity and naivety that killed Genevieve.

“Are you not the same? Although you cannot recite the Code of Order, you have always adhered to Order’s principles. You clearly had the chance to obtain Dormancy Serum sooner in order to save Miss Elisa, but you hoped to obtain it in the most proper and upright way, to push both the Church of Order and the Bloodfiends into acknowledging your relationship. You hoped to hold a wedding with her, to invite your friends, to openly announce to the guests that the two of you would be happy forever.

“But on the day the talks between both sides concluded smoothly, Miss Elisa chose suicide because she had fallen into derangement.

“On countless nights, when you stood before Miss Elisa’s tombstone, you were lashing at yourself. You were wondering whether you had been wrong. You were criticizing your past understanding and actions. You wanted to deny the past you.

“Have you not realized? After Miss Elisa died, your temperament changed noticeably, and it grew increasingly severe. This is completely different from the rigorous and order-abiding person you once were.

“You said it was because of me.

“No, it was not. You loathe your past self and wanted to change, then pinned all of this on me, but I truly died long ago, Nio.”

Nio fell into silence.

A long while later, he started to laugh again. His expression remained firm.

Clearly, he did not believe what “he” had just said. In this confrontation, any slip-ups could lead to a very terrifying outcome.

In a hoarse voice, Nio continued calling out, “Torathos, advance! I awakened you, not so you could show me your compassion. Your hesitation and wavering now, are they worthy of our companions from back then!”

But at that moment, Nio froze, because when he looked toward Torathos in the distance, he saw a group of figures on Torathos’s back, dressed in white divine robes.

***

Tafmann looked around himself in a daze. Suddenly, all around him, many men and women in white priest’s robes appeared.

They stood around chatting. They were speaking and laughing. Some were singing, some were dancing, some were reading, and some were drawing blueprints. Their faces were filled with warm, gentle smiles. On them, it seemed impossible to see even the slightest dust. When standing among them, one would subconsciously lower one’s head and examine oneself, feeling that one was not clean.

Tafmann lowered his head. He saw that his lone hand was covered in blood. Instinctively, he wanted to hide his hand, not letting them see it.

“Ah, your hand is dirty. How were you so careless? Here, I’ll wipe it for you.” A sweet-looking girl bent down, holding a clean handkerchief. She took Tafmann’s hand and began wiping the blood from it.

Her originally clean handkerchief that was embroidered with exquisite patterns was immediately sullied.

Tafmann said, “I dirtied your handkerchief.”

The girl smiled and replied, “If a hand is dirty, wipe it with a handkerchief and it becomes clean. If a handkerchief is dirty, wash it in water and it becomes clean too.”

Tafmann subconsciously asked, “Then what about the heart?”

“The heart? Mr. Phileas said before that the heart is the easiest thing in this world to wipe clean.”

“Mr. Phileas...”

“Haha, so this is the current Darkmoon Island?”

“It’s completely different from before. When we first arrived, the town on the island was only one-fifth this size.”

“Look at this town, neat and orderly. This is our planning and layout.”

“No, I retain my objection. I still believe overly neat town planning is a blasphemy against architectural aesthetics.”

“But you must also consider the cost of governing the town. And most of the townspeople who will live here in the future, even after a hundred years, still will not be able to appreciate your architectural aesthetics. What they need are clean streets and comfortable living environments.

“Those nobles living halfway up the mountain are the ones who need your designs.”

“Architectural aesthetics should not be divided by class.”

“But we already achieved it. Look at the buildings in the town. They incorporate so many of our Light elements. Everywhere are traces of Light. Even their clothing bears marks left by our designs.”

“Ah, the docks are so large. I said that this place was suitable for building a major harbor.”

“What about the fleet? Where is the fleet I helped to build back then?”

“It should be out at sea. If the fleet stayed moored at home all the time, that would be truly unsafe.”

“So the current Darkmoon Island no longer needs to worry about being harassed by pirates?”

“It shouldn’t. Pirates can’t reach this place anymore.”

“That is wonderful! Ordinary people can work and earn money without being disturbed by pirates. Their lives should be much better than before. Those Darkmoon warriors should be capable of protecting them well.”

“Of course. We helped design their armor.”

“And we taught them forging techniques.”

“This island is getting better and better.”

“Yes. Better and better.”

Tafmann still knelt there. The words continuously reaching his ears made him deeply constrained, deeply uneasy.

As for Elder Zimar, there was only confusion in his eyes. It was as though he had seen something, yet also as though he had seen nothing at all, because he did not belong to Light.

***

“Nio, do you see it? The ones who made Torathos stop are them.”

“Heh...” Nio retorted sharply, “What gives them the right? This is unfair! We have already come this far, yet it still has to stop? They must pay the price in blood. Bernard’s descendants must bear the cost of betrayal!”

“Nio, can you lend me your body temporarily? I will not take the chance to seize control of your body, because I am grateful to you. Truly, Nio. I know that everything you did on this island, including awakening Torathos, was to help me. I am very grateful.”

“Dream on! I will never voluntarily hand over control of my body to you. Never!”

“In truth, whether you hand it over or not is all the same. I do not exist to begin with. What I want to do and what you are doing, when they are aligned, can you tell the difference?”

A soft white glow radiated from Nio’s body, giving off a warm and peaceful feeling. He turned to face Karon and smiled. “That little girl is quite good. In her bones, she is kind and resilient. Do you truly not intend to pull her into your arms?”

“Are you Mr. Phileas, or are you still the captain?” Karon asked.

“Oh, when it comes to helping you leave a deeper impression in that little girl’s heart, your captain and I share the same interest. I think Genevieve, laying there back then, would also be very pleased to see this scene.”

“I don’t think she would.”

“No, she would. She had a very good relationship with Miss Poelle, but precisely because it was very good, she would probably be delighted to see Miss Poelle’s symbiosis partner also winning another girl’s heart. She would certainly hope to see Miss Poelle gain another rival in love. What an interesting thing that would be. She would definitely be gleeful. She is standing on the turtle shell looking this way right now. If you do not believe me, I will ask her for you later.”

So this was... Poelle’s close friend.

“Poelle and I do not have that sort of relationship.”

“A woman is willing to form a symbiotic relationship with you, and that is far closer than the relationship between husband and wife by countless times. If there were even the slightest rejection toward you, she would not have been willing to do this.”

“You misunderstand. I have a fiancée.”

“Oh, yes. I almost forgot. I must tell Genevieve about that, tell her Miss Poelle had long since become someone else’s rival in love. Heh. My Genevieve will certainly laugh until her stomach hurts!”

“But I believe Poelle, who already hated Bernard, will hate Bernard even more after learning of Lady Genevieve’s fate. She will also blame me, and ask why I did nothing. I may not even be able to sleep peacefully.”

“Miss Poelle has always been frank and genuine. I know that.”

“So I should still do something. The ordinary people in the town can be forgiven, but there is one person who has no reason to be forgiven. I have never felt disgust toward anyone to this degree before.”

“Bernard?”

“Yes.”

“But unfortunately, he is already dead. If you punish a dead person, he cannot sense it.”

Karon answered, “He can sense it.”

“Mm. Then, thank you, Mr. Immers.

“Also, I greatly admire your grandfather. He is a great man. Even though our faiths differ, it does not stop me from feeling reverence after hearing of his deeds. I believe he will awaken.”

“Thank you.”

“I am the one who should thank you. If I could choose, while I would want him to have eaten my corpse to survive, I had no wish for my memories to have brought him so many years of distress. Thank you for appearing. At the very least, during this period, he had someone to whom he could pour everything out.”

“There is no need for someone else to thank me for matters between the captain and me.”

After saying this, Karon transformed into a mass of black mist. At this moment, all of Darkmoon Island’s attention was on Torathos, and the guards had all been transferred over. The Palace of Remembrance was now effectively undefended. Bernard, I’m coming for you.

Watching Karon leave, Nio smiled. A white magic array appeared beneath him.

At the same time, the pool on Torathos’s back emitted a gentle light, and Nio’s figure stepped out from it. He walked to Tafmann and extended a hand toward him as he knelt there.

Tafmann stared blankly at this faceless man before him. Though he could not see his face, Tafmann could sense who he was. “I am guilty...”

“If saying that I forgive you can bring comfort to your heart, then I can tell you that you did nothing wrong. You have always given everything within your power for the homeland you wished to protect, for the people you wished to protect. You were not wrong.

“Now, Mr. Tafmann, please give me your hand.”

Tafmann silently raised his hand, which was grabbed by Nio.

Nio pulled upward, but Tafmann himself was not pulled up, because what Nio pulled out was the malicious spirit that had attached itself to Tafmann. This spirit should have completely devoured Tafmann’s soul one week later.

The malicious spirit gave an enraged shriek after being pulled out, but Nio just looked at it calmly, and the spirit began to shrink back.

A stream of water emerged from the pool and bound the invisible spirit. Though the spirit struggled, it was futile. In the end, it was pulled into the depths of the pool.

“Thank you... thank you, Mr. Phileas.”

“You may thank Torathos, because the malicious spirit was transferred onto Torathos. But our Torathos is very large. Mm, also, in its current state, one additional malicious spirit attached to it is not a major matter.”

“Torathos—”

“It volunteered. Because after it awakened, you were the first person to stroke its head with the power of Light. It is very grateful to you, Mr. Tafmann.”

“No. I do not deserve its gratitude. I do not deserve it.”

“You should not live with guilt. That is not what Torathos wants. It hopes you can be happy.”

It hopes I... can be happy?

“You can disembark now, Mr. Tafmann.”

Tafmann stood, bowed to Phileas, then pulled up the somewhat unclear-headed Elder Zimar. Placing the elder on his back, Tafmann jumped down from the turtle shell.

Nio raised his arm and shouted to the gathered believers around him, “All right, my dear people, we are going to continue our journey again! Where is my favorite harp? Play it. Let us dance joyfully together as we head toward the next part of our journey. We firmly believe that our journey will forever be bright!”

The sound of the harp immediately rang out. The men and women in white divine robes took one another’s hands and began dancing and singing.

Upon this vast sea, their journey would never be lonely or dull, because they had laughter and cheer.

Nio shouted, “Torathos, turn around. We are setting out to sea again!”

Roar! Torathos let out a joyful cry. Its enormous body began turning, and it proceeded to retrace the path it had come from.

Its body was rotting. Corpse spots covered it. The aura of death filled its surroundings. And yet, it was happy.

As it moved, the corruption within its body did not spill out in the slightest.

***

“Your Eminence, the giant beast has turned back,” Rudina reported to Claude.

“What is your judgment?” Claude asked.

“That we do nothing. Any attack now would be foolish. Breaking its body open would only cause corruption to leak. It should intend to leave the island.

“Although I do not know the exact reason, the farther it leaves Darkmoon Island, the better. Even if it dies in the near sea, the corruption will still affect this place. Ideally, it should head for the deep sea.”

“Then keep a watch on it. Just now, I heard mercy in its roar. I believe it will carry the source of corruption away from Darkmoon Island, and as far as possible.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.”

“Also, Bernard is the spiritual pillar of Darkmoon Island. Since you will represent our Church of Order in controlling Darkmoon Island’s army in the future, first expose Bernard’s true face. Only by breaking Darkmoon Island’s spiritual pillar will it be convenient for you, and convenient for Order, to better control Darkmoon. Use this matter as an opportunity. Let the people of the island know what kind of shameless betrayer their ancestor Bernard truly was.”

“But Your Eminence, if we do this, will it not make the people on the island even more grateful to Light?”

“Are you implying that Order must now fear even believers of Light who died more than a hundred years ago?”

“No, Your Eminence. That is not what I meant.”

“Rudina, what we guard against is the Church of Light, not Light.”

***

Torathos reached the seaside and was about to enter the sea.

White light released from Nio’s body and condensed into Phileas’s figure before him. “You should disembark as well, Nio.”

Nio still stood where he was, in no hurry to leave. Instead, he looked at the phantom of Phileas before him and asked, “Why?”

“Are you still tangled over why I gave up vengeance against ordinary people?”

“I do not agree with your choice, Phileas.”

“I know. I believe that Mr. Karon also does not agree with my choice, because the faith you follow is Order, while the faith I follow is Light.”

“Is that the reason?”

“Light. What is Light?

“Light was born in an age shrouded by darkness. People living in the fear of darkness cried out without end, until finally, from within that darkness, they saw a single ray of light. Even though it was so tiny, even though it was so insignificant compared with the boundless darkness around it.

“But even as weak as it was, it pierced the darkness. In the end, under its guidance, people united, and finally drove away the darkness.

“So, it is still that question: what is Light?

“If all around you is brightness, if every corner is filled with glaring white, that is not Light. Such Light is no different from darkness. What they want, their purpose, is to suppress and devour everything around them. Light will forever be that weak and tiny ray. When your heart is completely filled, it can appear and give you guidance.

“I hate Bernard. I still hate him now. I detest the Darkmoon bloodline. I still detest it now. I want to destroy Darkmoon Island. I still want to destroy it now. I have never let go of my hatred, my anger, my loathing, but I choose to follow the guidance of the Light.

“I am not forgiving, nor am I redeeming, because look, they, including Torathos, are so happy now.”

Most of Torathos’s enormous body had already entered the sea. Returning to the water again, it released an excited roar, and the people on its shell also cheered. Every new departure was filled with expectation and excitement.

“Nio, disembark. I must say farewell to you. I have already left, taking my companions with me. From within your body, from within your soul, we have already gone far away.”

Nio looked coldly at Phileas. He had struggled against this man before him for a full ten years, and for that, he had not hesitated to tear off his own face to make a mask.

Phileas continued, “Nio, as you have seen, I lost. You won.”

Nio gave a cold laugh. “You lost?”

“Yes. I lost.”

“You were a dead man to begin with. What did you have to lose?”

“Oh, that is true. But at least you no longer need to worry about falling into derangement because of my influence.”

Nio left the turtle shell and stood on the shore, watching Torathos’s enormous figure gradually depart. He lowered his head and sighed. “The only reason not to worry about derangement is because one has already fallen into derangement.”

When he raised his head again, Torathos’s figure had already grown indistinct. Yet Nio still seemed able to clearly see a man in a white divine robe standing on Torathos’s head, facing him, hands folded before him.

Devoutly, he said, “Praise Light!”