The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 443: I’ve Become a Scapegoat

At six in the morning.

Just as dawn was breaking, Ashe stepped into the bath right after Iger. At that exact moment, everyone’s Book of Gospel suddenly popped open on its own again.

Only four days had passed, and the Gospel had already updated its fifth list, The Heretical Arts Rankings.

Heretical arts, as the name suggested, referred to evil sorcery systems.

In truth, this definition was rather absurd. Even the most black-and-white-minded ogre sorcerers understood that there was no inherent good or evil in sorcery itself, only in the people who wielded it. For example, the Legendary necromancer from one of the Six-Emblem Families had established a Mermaid Weed Farm for his house. Setting aside Ashe’s personal opinions on the matter, that farm had transformed Vanmura into a happy, prosperous city, significantly boosting its productivity. In that context, necromancy was undoubtedly advanced, righteous, and beneficial.

However, while sorcery itself had no moral alignment, the environment required to practice it could certainly be distinguished as either good or bad.

Take necromancy again. In a utopian world where everyone was immortal, where would a necromancer even find corpses? In such a paradise, necromancy would absolutely be considered a heretical art because practicing it would inherently require murder.

Thus, the heretical arts defined by the Gospel were those sorcery classes that simply could not coexist with a normal society, such as plague, famine, war, death, chaos, and despair.

For a sorcerer to cultivate these arts, they had to actively drive society toward collapse. Therefore, every heretical sorcerer could be considered unforgivably wicked, destined to end up as nothing more than human filth.

More importantly, these heretical systems contributed nothing to productivity. Necromancy at least improved the efficiency of recycling corpses, but plague, famine, war, and chaos directly diminished societal output.

Even standard, combat-oriented sorcery, if it didn’t improve productivity, at least didn’t actively destroy it.

In a chaotic era where nations bordered one another, such combat arts might serve to defend one’s homeland. But in the current age, each nation existed in isolation, relying entirely on the Virtual World to grant passage between them. There was no real need for military readiness.

If not for the necessity of combat within the Virtual World and the constant need to suppress the Abyss, Ashe didn’t doubt that combat sorcerers would sit at the very bottom of the social hierarchy unless they were of the Sacred Realm or above. Every era had its own defining theme, and in a stable society, creation-based sorcerers were the only true answer.

If ordinary combat sorcerers were already considered low-tier, then heretical sorcerers were downright sewer-level.

Thus, the newly released Heretical Arts Rankings listed the ten most repulsive, sewer-dwelling sorcerers of the next fifty years. In an age of impending catastrophe, they might not be remembered with honor, but they would certainly be infamous for eternity. Every single one of them would take advantage of social unrest to unleash city-destroying disasters, resurrecting concepts the Gospel had nearly eradicated from the nation, such as plague, famine, war, and chaos.

Frankly, Ashe didn’t have much right to despise the people on this ranking. Setting himself aside, Iger had destroyed entire cities in the Schemer Rankings, and Harvey had established the top ten necromancer lineages in the Family Rankings. Compared to those two, the people on the Heretical Arts Rankings weren’t even worthy of carrying their shoes.

If Ashe truly hated villains, he would have kicked the other two motorcycles off the sky bridge right then and there. But first of all, he believed the Gospel had profoundly misunderstood Iger and Harvey. Second of all, since they were his friends, he naturally stood by them. It was just like how the Gospel constantly slandered him as a source of calamity, yet Iger and Harvey had never doubted him for a second. In fact, Ashe almost wished they would doubt him at least a little. Their complete, blind trust made him feel oddly underestimated.

Just like the Happiness Rankings before it, the moment the Heretical Arts Rankings appeared, it was immediately rendered invalid by Ashe. That was precisely why they were speeding across the sky bridge now. Annan could finally confirm that all subsequent rankings would be nullified ahead of schedule, meaning their plan to assassinate the princess could officially begin. They no longer needed to linger in Fedela playing family.

However, what Gospel Ashe did in the Heretical Arts Rankings left the real Ashe extremely displeased.

If his future self had chosen to persuade, threaten, or even kill those future heretical sorcerers, Ashe might not have liked it, but he could have accepted it. Instead, Gospel Ashe took a naively cruel approach of choosing to force them to repent.

In simple terms, before those individuals had even walked down the path of heretical arts, Gospel Ashe would appear before them and force visions of the disasters they would one day cause directly into their minds. They were made to experience the raw despair and hatred of their future victims, along with the agonizing suffering brought about by their actions, until they repented for crimes they had not yet committed and then took their own lives.

Perhaps because this was viewed as a righteous act, or perhaps because the arrest warrant had already lost its meaning, the Empire’s Red Hats finally lifted Ashe’s wanted status. It was as if they were encouraging him to keep killing villains and performing ”good deeds.”

Contrary to their belief, Ashe found the Heretical Arts Rankings the most intolerable of all. If the previous rankings had merely skewed his personality, and the Happiness Rankings had distorted it, then the Heretical Arts Rankings outright reshaped it into something else.

The Gospel Ashe within its pages stood in ultimate judgment, condemning the Echoers for crimes they had yet to commit. Setting aside whether he even had the ability to guide them back to the right path, which was far too saintly an endeavor anyway, Ashe himself had zero interest in saving souls that might go astray.

Even if they had to die, Gospel Ashe could have simply killed them. Whether it was for disrupting the Gospel, saving the world, or even out of personal disgust, any reason would have sufficed. Instead, he insisted on forcing repentance, placing himself in the position of a judge, like a god condemning sinners who had yet to sin.

If a person could be judged in the present based solely on their future crimes, then wouldn’t Ashe himself be the one most deserving of death?

In the Heretical Arts Rankings, Ashe didn’t see people; he saw only a god and its toys. Unfortunately, ever since his transmigration, Ashe had always been the toy.

So in his eyes, Gospel Ashe looked like nothing more than a worker who had rotted from within, turning into a traitor to his own kind.

***

As if sensing Ashe’s low mood, Annan changed the subject. ”Look. Nabistin isn’t far now.”

Ashe looked up. On the distant horizon, buildings flickering with blue arcs of light came into view as a vast, futuristic metropolis gradually revealed itself. ”Does Nabistin only have one level?”

”Nabistin has three.”

Ashe froze for a moment. ”Huh?”

He glanced at the clear, wide-open sky above the city. ”But—”

”Ashe, do you know how multi-layered city construction technology actually came to be? It started because Empress Isa wanted to apply the latest technological innovations to the imperial capital.

”However, renovating and rebuilding the existing city would have been far too much trouble. It was easier to just build a brand-new one from scratch. But because the imperial family refused to relocate the capital, an audacious, Miracle-based project was born, which was to build the new city directly above the original one. Once it was complete, Earth Class Miracles would sink the old city underground while the new city descended to the surface. That way, the transition between the old and new capitals could be completed seamlessly.

”That’s how multi-layered city construction technology advanced. It’s only fully matured for practical use in the past fifty years. While the capital couldn’t build a permanent second layer that blocks out the sun, it didn’t matter. The capital has already undergone two of these transitions, meaning Nabistin now has three levels: the underground, the mid-layer, and the surface.

”Nabistin is incredibly strict when it comes to screening outsiders, but that only applies to the surface city. The underground, on the other hand, is a lawless zone where even the Red Hats have no presence. That’s where we’re heading tonight, a gathering place for criminals, dreamers, and ambitious schemers alike.”

At that moment, the sky bridge began to slope downward toward the roads below. Three paths branched out before them: the surface highway, the mid-layer tunnel, and the underground tunnel. Guided by Annan, the group dove into the underground route. Around them, traffic gradually thickened with heavy cargo trucks and hovering cars, allowing them to blend in without drawing a single eye.

After a long, steep descent, they finally emerged from the narrow tunnel, and the vast expanse that opened up before them left everyone momentarily dazed.

There were dozens of towering skyscrapers, massive holographic advertisements, delivery drones darting through the air, and crowded, roaring streams of incoming traffic. If not for the glowing fluorescent fungi clinging to the rocky ceiling overhead, Ashe and the others might have genuinely believed they had just arrived in a sleepless neon city on the surface.

At the toll station overpass bridging the end of the traffic flow, a radiant banner hung, its letters shimmering with vibrant, colorful light. Ashe read softly, ”Welcome to the hell closest to heaven, Nabistin Underground.”

***

After paying the city entry fee, the Funeral Agency squad slipped into the underground city without a hitch. Since they were on motorbikes, their full-face helmets drew no second glances.

Iger could hardly believe it. ”That seemed way too easy. Does Nabistin just not care?”

”On the surface, at least, that’s how it looks,” Annan explained, looking around. ”Even people in hooded cloaks aren’t getting searched. But it’s likely intentional. Nabistin is the imperial capital; it gathers the vast majority of resources across the Gospel Kingdom, which naturally attracts the most anti-social criminals. This place is the ultimate dumping ground for the Gospel.”

”I thought Fedela was the lowest point of Gospel,” Ashe noted.

Annan leaned in closer to Ashe’s ear. ”Fedela is just backward. This place is pure chaos. Blood Moon must have a place like this too, right? Somewhere to corral and manage unstable elements?”

Ashe considered it. She wasn’t wrong. Blood Moon utilized prisons and warzones, but Gospel had actively set aside an entire underground city to nurture these people like parasites, right beneath the imperial capital, no less. Calling it a dumping ground felt too mild. It was more like the Gospel’s cesspit.

Wait... Did she just drag me into the mud with that comparison?

From the side, Harvey suddenly chimed in. ”In that case, I take it the Echoers on the Heretical Arts Rankings are probably lurking around here too?”

”Even if they aren’t yet, they’ll end up here sooner or later. There’s nowhere left for them on the outside.”

Right then, a sudden commotion erupted through the surrounding traffic. People scrambled from their cars and stared upward. Someone screamed in sheer terror, ”Plague Shadow!”

Ashe and the others looked up. Standing on a banner-draped overpass was a figure they all recognized: the man ranked fifth on the Heretical Arts Rankings—the Plague Shadow, Rogue Deyor.

He looked like an ordinary young sorcerer in his early twenties, possessing refined, delicate features. Before the apocalypse, he had specialized in poison arts. Afterward, he turned to plagues. Looking at him, no one would ever suspect he was a monster who would one day unleash deadly epidemics to wipe out hundreds of thousands, all to advance his own sorcery class and ascend to Legend. He was a criminal utterly devoid of humanity.

Yet this figure, destined for infamy, now stood on the overpass with a completely blank expression. Calmly, he drew a dagger and slit open his own chest. Reaching deep into the wound, he pulled out a beating, blackened heart.

Ashe’s eyes narrowed. He instantly recalled the entry on Rogue’s future actions recorded in the Heretical Arts Rankings after the manifestation of Gospel Ashe. Overcome with repentance, Rogue realized his existence held no meaning. Under Ashe’s gaze, he walked onto the overpass, carved out his own heart, crushed it, and activated the Ritual Class Miracle he was destined to master. He infected himself with the brutal plague of his own creation. Flesh, bone, and soul melted away. Like tears of remorse, the residue spread across the ground, forming a single word: ’Sin’...”

Right on cue, Rogue began to dissolve into a dark liquid. The substance hissed, corroding the asphalt as it spread and forcing nearby vehicles to swerve away in a panic. By the time he completely vanished, a wide, empty perimeter had formed. No one dared approach. They could only gawk at the corroding marks from a safe distance.

”Sin...”

”It’s exactly like the prophecy in the Heretical Arts Rankings...”

”It’s that man... It can only be him!”

”He’s come to Nabistin!”

”The future Harbinger of Disaster, the source of all chaos, the undying demon with countless followers, Ashe Heath has arrived in Nabistin!”

”He even forced the future record to play out perfectly! He made Rogue repent and take his own life!”

”Fate weaves like threads, unshakable as stone! The Gospel makes no mistakes. Everything is already set in stone!”

Amid the chaotic, frenzied cries of the crowd, the helmeted members of the Funeral Agency silently turned their heads to look at Ashe.

Ashe simply spread his hands in resignation. ”Clearly, I’ve become a scapegoat.”