Regret

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“That traitor, Cecilia, was destined to die.”

[At the same time, in the Discipline Hall]

Cecilia’s ending were uttered by the man’s mouth.

These were the words spoken by a man who should have been on a battlefield. Instead, Leinster had appeared in the Discipline Hall.

“The Pope knew all along. He knew she deliberately leaked information to save Bai Min, but he let the woman live, simply because she still had her uses.”

Leinster had known this for a long time. He gazed down imperiously at the young man kneeling on the floor and sneered.

“Little fox, I told you not to get close to that woman, and not to appear in His Holiness the Pope’s line of sight. But you just had to insist on walking a dead-end path.”

Leinster might have seemed reckless, like an alpha who was all muscle and brawn, but he had survived in the Illusory God Church for over three hundred years, and not by just relying on muscle alone.

He knew many, many secrets and could see through many people’s intentions; but he just didn’t bother to talk about it.

For instance, the Pope knew Cecilia loved Bai Min, and he knew He Zhun harbored ill intentions. But the reason he kept the former and sought to eliminate the latter was simply because He Zhun was of no use to him, only a threat. Cecilia was different; she was the only one in the Church who had a chance of gaining a fraction of Pei Changyun’s trust.

The woman was nothing more than a backup dagger, kept around only for that reason. That was why a mission as top-secret and critical as the one involving the Huo Chao clone, a mission aimed specifically at Pei Changyun, would have inevitably been given to Cecilia, even if Leinster hadn’t been punished for failing his own mission.

And once her final use had been wrung out of her, Cecilia would die.

At that moment, He Zhun was completely bound and kneeling on the floor. He should have been taken back to the Academy of Sciences to be locked up after the soldiers had rescued him, but people from the Church had suddenly appeared and abducted him. His datapad had been destroyed before he could decode the final piece of information. He had been brought back to the Holy Relic White Tower’s Discipline Hall, a place He Zhun knew well—

A place where all manner of horrific punishments, including death sentences, were carried out. Many disciples who had made mistakes entered this place, and if they ever left, they didn’t live for long.

Now, his hands, feet, and neck were locked in iron chains, his arms was pulled high above him, and he was the very picture of a prisoner about to be executed.

In fact, that wasn’t wrong.

He had already learned that the Pope had issued an order for his execution. It was likely out of fear that he, like his father, could create a drug to suppress the Holy Stigmata, so the Pope had even demanded that Elder Mandela personally carry out the death sentence.

The Pope wanting him dead was within He Zhun’s expectations. However, he had one last card hidden up his sleeve, so there was still room to turn the tables.

He Zhun’s eyes narrowed.

He couldn’t die here.

He felt the signaling device on his elbow grow hot, which meant Jiang Ci was very close. In fact, the chaos outside was almost certainly Jiang Ci’s doing.

So, the only thing he needed to do now was buy time. At the very least, before he died, he had to find a way to see Jiang Ci and pass on the information. At this thought, the young man lifted his head and looked at Leinster, who stood before him.

The man let out a cold sneer.

“Now that you’re about to die, do you feel regretful? Want to beg me to save you?”

“……”

He Zhun was silent for a moment before he spoke.

“A person’s path is their own choice. My path is my choice. Leinster, your path, your deal with the devil that is the Illusory God Church—wasn’t that your choice, too?”

He looked up at the tall, dangerous alpha, his tone laced with a hint of mockery.

He had spent more than a decade studying this man, Leinster. Understanding his past, his personality, his likes and dislikes, everything about him.

And so, he knew about Leinster’s deal with the devil.

Leinster’s life was a bit like Ye Shu’s, and also a bit like He Zhun’s.

The part like Ye Shu’s was that Leinster, an S-class alpha, had originally come from a privileged background, only to have his family destroyed due to persecution by a high-ranking Alliance official. And the part like He Zhun’s was that they had both, for the sake of survival and revenge, willingly entered the Illusory God Church.

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The Illusory God Church, the Dawn Legion and the Empire, and the Zergs were like three different models of social structure.

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This resulted in some people being loyal, some adoring, some hateful, and some slanderous.

Don't scrape

Don't copy

Leinster was one of them, but he simply saw it as a deal with the devil. He had gained power from the Illusory God Church, and in return, he had to give up centuries of freedom to become a tool for this absurd Church.

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“Leinster, are you regretting it now?”

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“He Zhun, anyone who betrays the Church will die at the hands of the Pope. For example, Huo Chao, Bai Min, Jiang Jinsheng, the monster that Cecilia has become outside… oh, right, and your father, He Qichu.”

Don't scrape

Don't copy

“Does that include you, Leinster, the one who is disobeying the Pope’s order to come see me?”

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“Of course not!”

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“Yes, I know.”

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Don't copy

“……”

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BAM—!

At that moment, the door was suddenly kicked open from the outside.

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“You…”

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Don't scrape

“I heard someone has infiltrated the Holy Relic White Tower. Shouldn’t Elder Mandela be purging the intruder instead of being here?”

Mandela was seething.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that, Leinster?”

“Leinster, aren’t you curious why every genetically superior child the Church selected back then had a tragic background?”

He Zhun’s voice suddenly came from behind Leinster.

“Regardless of gender, S-class children are one in a million and usually come from wealthy or noble families. So why did so many of these children, all at the same time, suffer all sorts of family calamities that forced them to join the Church’s academy?”

“Utter nonsense!!!”

Mandela’s face fell. He drew his gun and aimed it at He Zhun’s head.

BANG—!

The sound of a gunshot and the thud of a fist hitting flesh rang out simultaneously.

The energy blast went astray, striking the iron chain on He Zhun’s left wrist. It snapped. His wrist went numb from the shock, and he quickly pulled a miniature decoding pick from the sole of his shoe and stabbed it into the lock on his right wrist.

CLICK!

The lock sprang open.

He Zhun swiftly pulled a tranquilizer gun from the inner sleeve of his clothes. He was lucky; when they had captured him, they had been in such a hurry that they had only shackled him before bringing him directly to the Discipline Hall, so they hadn’t searched him.

Meanwhile, Leinster had twisted Mandela’s gun, causing the remaining shots to hit the disciples behind them. Mandela, never expecting Leinster would dare to do such a thing, was utterly enraged. He deployed his mecha weapon and swiped with its claws.

Leinster instantly retreated. He glanced down at the deep gash on his chest; for a moment, he could even see the white flesh within before the gushing blood obscured the gruesome wound. Any later, and the man would have gouged out his heart. But the Holy Stigmata was rapidly beginning to repair the injury.

The two men immediately fell into combat. Leinster’s combat power was slightly inferior to Mandela’s, and in such a confined space, he was at an even greater disadvantage. After just a few minutes of exchanging blows, the reddish-gold Holy Stigmata in Mandela’s body suddenly pierced into Leinster’s abdomen.

In the next second, the golden Holy Stigmata that had been healing his wounds suddenly seemed to be suppressed by something and stopped working. Leinster shuddered violently. All his movements froze as if someone had hit a pause button, and an expression of unbearable pain appeared on his face against his will.

“Leinster! Are you trying to betray the Church?! The consequences for defying the Pope’s orders are…”

Mandela’s furious tirade was cut short when he suddenly sensed something flying at him from the side.

He backhanded it and it shattered.

A cloud of blue mist dispersed through the room.

“If those consequences are caused by the Holy Stigmata, then I’m sorry, but I’ve already created a drug that can remove it.”

He Zhun was breathing rapidly. He held up a blue vial, waving it in front of them.

“Leinster, isn’t this why you came to save me?”

Of course, he hadn’t made it. The intelligence he had decoded from his father was only a part of the formula for the Holy Stigmata-suppressing drug he had once given Huo Chao. And the vial in his hand right now was certainly not that drug, but just a stronger version of an anesthetic.

The moment He Zhun spoke, shocked expressions appeared on everyone’s faces. Even Mandela and Leinster, in the middle of their fight, froze.

The significance of the Holy Stigmata to the Illusory God Church was immense.

It was like the steel frame and concrete of a skyscraper; if it was removed, the entire structure would collapse into rubble.

Mandela was the first to react. He used his Holy Stigmata to pin Leinster to the wall. Then, without a second thought, he lunged straight for He Zhun.

Whether what He Zhun said was true or false, this man could not be left alive!!!

He Zhun stood his ground, covering his nose and mouth, and made no movement to dodge. In his widening pupils, he saw not only the metal claws closing in on him, but also the silver spear approaching from behind.

Mandela instantly sensed something was wrong and tried to pull back to defend himself, but because of the anesthetic mist, his movements were slightly sluggish.

SHINK—!

It was the sound of a sharp weapon piercing human flesh.

A silver spear had stabbed through Mandela’s body from behind, at the point where his neck connected to his collarbone. It then swung sideways with immense force, throwing him through the air.