Facing an Ancient God for a Year

Chapter 2528: Chapter 2523: Killing Others Is No Better Than Killing Oneself

Until Greedy Worm and the other two had gone far away, Lord Sorondir still did not show himself, and Moore, now fallen into night, was filled with quiet peace.

Though from Fu Qian’s point of view, after such explosive developments just now, and with him not even deliberately catching the ”mouse,” that Siren Demigod definitely wouldn’t leave early.

In the end, faced with what had originally been a shocking mess, Sorondir, like Greedy Worm and the others, accepted the enlightenment from the Rebirth Club and more or less sorted out the situation.

After some consideration, he decided to put the bigger picture first and temporarily not go looking for trouble with this mysterious organization, so as to avoid extra complications.

It wasn’t because he was a pacifist or particularly broad‑minded; mainly, the situation didn’t yet look completely rotten—there was still hope.

Following along with the earlier account, one could see that with just a few casual pointers from those ambiguously‑positioned club members, many threats had actually already been removed.

For example, Yasui’s sabotage plan.

All three Executioners had already left, and those sacrificial lambs were utterly clueless about their own situation; as long as they were directly taken down and controlled, that particular threat would be completely gone.

And that mysterious Demigod who’d been confronting them in the Realm of the Dead earlier also turned out to belong to the Rebirth Club, making his actions suddenly traceable.

Not to mention, from the sound of it, that person had already left as well.

From Sorondir’s perspective, in theory he didn’t even need to clarify the Rebirth Club’s purpose this time; all he had to do was patiently wait for the next storm, and by then things would be much quieter overall.

Of course, it would still be best to keep an eye on the movements of this mysterious Demigod in the building—click!

Fu Qian did not linger; the next moment he opened the door and left, heading straight for the docks.

...

So what would happen if everyone in that room died?

Fu Qian was, of course, planning to head back out to sea; whether Sorondir would watch him leave from behind, how much inner conflict he’d have, and what feelings he’d end up with—none of that was within his scope of concern.

He’d made a point of swinging by here before departure mainly to earn some reputation for the Club.

Now that the goal had been achieved, there was no reason to waste more effort.

Of course, on his way straight toward the docks, Fu Qian didn’t mind giving a bit of thought to a small detail from his conversation with Laurie and the others just now, all while evaluating the game between Yasui and Ceren.

The people in that office had come here for the purpose of disrupting Sorondir’s promotion; this was now something he was fairly sure of.

And how exactly were they going to disrupt it? By dying here.

What effect would dying here have—Wise Dead... the balance of life and death.

From his earlier experience in the Realm of the Dead, he’d already learned quite a bit on this front, the core of which was that once the storm rose, every intelligent being would have a reflection in there, and thus a life‑and‑death balance index would appear.

If it wasn’t broken, then once the storm subsided everything would return to normal, at most leaving some subconscious spiritual enlightenment.

If it was broken, they would either be trapped in the Realm of the Dead, like Selana.

Or they would be pushed all the way down a one‑way road and formally become a ”Dead Man.”

So what if, during the storm, someone in Moore simply died on the spot?

No matter how you thought about it, that would completely shatter the balance of life and death, right?

On this side, a roomful of living people gone; on the other side, a bunch of clear‑minded dead added.

In that scenario, would the state of existence of the Miracle Creatures be slightly disturbed, causing the storm to stop early, or something along those lines?

Yes—this, in Fu Qian’s view, was the greatest possible significance of that group’s deaths.

Strictly speaking, given Moore’s population size, a few people died of natural causes every day, so it shouldn’t have been anything unusual.

But on one hand, precise timing of a death during the storm was needed; on the other hand, this was a bunch of Transcendents, whose contribution to the imbalance might be much larger—so there was no real contradiction.

Bringing this premise in, the various strange moves of the Sirens and Yasui suddenly also became perfectly reasonable—

Sorondir wanted to take a risk for the sake of improvement and then persuaded the organization to cooperate.

They clearly knew something about the nature of the Wise Dead, so their first move was to pull all their own people back, leaving only that batch on the ship.

Otherwise, if Yasui wanted to sabotage things, they would only have needed to launch an attack on those frontline personnel.

But even with such preparations, the opposing side obviously also understood the Wise Dead to some degree and quickly came up with a countermeasure—if they couldn’t kill Sorondir’s people, they’d kill their own people instead.

Thus Moore acquired an escort agency office and a bunch of Mercenaries ready to act at any time.

...

One had to admit, there was quite a bit of a back‑and‑forth brawl feel to it.

As for why such an important task had to be outsourced to hired hands?

That did seem a bit off at first glance; in theory, even within the same organization, it wasn’t that hard to ensure the killers and the killed didn’t know each other.

But if you considered it alongside another question, it still wasn’t hard to draw an inference—why did Sorondir have to go looking for thrills at this particular moment?

It had already been argued earlier that the Wise Dead only became more active after Sorondir started moving, so that explanation didn’t hold.

So, compared to usual, what was so special about this timing?

Of course there was something: the conflict between the Sirens and Yasui was in full swing, and the Night Watchman would definitely be very aware of it.

Everyone knew the Night Watchman didn’t care about Transcendents killing one another, but anything involving ordinary people was taboo.

Was it possible that forcibly cutting off the storm by breaking the balance of life and death might bring about some side effects that could endanger ordinary people?

Given how closely the two Moores mirrored each other, this was hardly an unfounded suspicion.

And at any other time it might have been one thing, but at such a tense moment, any slip‑up would mean trouble for the Sirens, and as their enemy, Yasui would surely come under suspicion and be unable to escape responsibility.

In other words, this time Lord Sorondir was truly making a dangerous move, turning a disadvantage into an advantage and using the tense situation to jump right into Yasui’s face.

Attempting promotion right in front of the enemy, he was betting that compared to normal times, Yasui would actually dare less to interfere now, because it would be even harder to wash their hands of it.

If something really did go wrong, the Sirens’ little scheme might not stay hidden, but Yasui would definitely still bear the primary blame.

In such troubled times, being targeted by the Night Watchman again might well push them straight into collapse.

It was risky, but the calculation was already viciously sharp.

The Siren leadership had probably factored this in, plus the chance to ”use one tiger to devour another,” so however things developed, they stood to gain, which was why they were willing to expend resources to attempt this now.

Unfortunately, without Emperor Yasui’s restraint, the Yasui Group turned out to be even more aggressive than expected and actually went all‑in on obstructing them.

Only, by sacrificing their own people and using outside killers, they’d installed a small safety harness, so that if something really did happen and the investigation came, they could at least cushion the blow a bit.

Of course, now it looked like nothing would happen, and Lord Sorondir could continue with his grand plan...

A moment later, standing on a passenger ship that had finally left the harbor, Fu Qian gazed from afar at a figure in the Darkness on the docks.

Though, by his estimation, Sorondir no longer had much of a chance.

Lady Nepheli’s afterflames were already fading, and the Wise Dead were growing quiet.