Night Journey

Chapter 75 War Letter
Cillian laboriously dragged the body ashore, and Bruce circled it, sniffing the air.

"Something's not right. The cause of death for this body wasn't a sword strike or high temperature."

Bruce and Cillian joined forces to kill everyone. With the Soul Essence Bullet penetrating and burning, the evil offspring were left with almost no intact corpses, and the ordinary people who believed in evil were turned to ashes.

"This corpse was killed by the Claws; he was a sacrifice."

Ciri used his Boiling Sword to cut open the corpse's ruptured wound, revealing the clusters of mycelium growing beneath. They had grown to the next stage: clusters of umbelliferous spores, and some had formed hard capsules that protected the spores inside.

"Several other bodies were anchored to the bottom of the river, and most of them were also covered with this kind of thing."

Cillian's brain raced, piecing together fragments of distant information.

"In recent years, most of these underground channels used to guide the rivers have been abandoned, but they still have certain functions, connecting the rivers like an invisible spider web, completely covering the city of Hull."

Cillian continued his analysis, "The reason why the Claws regularly gather in different underground passages is for sacrifice."

"They used the corpses of believers as containers to store large quantities of fungi and hid them at the bottom of the river to evade the city guard's patrols."

Bruce asked skeptically, "Really?"

Cillian shook his head. "I'm just guessing."

"Then what are you going to do next?"

Realizing it was a body bomb, Bruce cautiously distanced himself.

"Do what you should do."

Cillian severed the corpse's head.

The corpse had been rotting for some time; its eye sockets were deeply sunken and covered with umbrella spores, and its mouth was also filled with similar things. Fungi were growing from its ears and nose, wriggling slowly like fat maggots.

"The extinguishing of Baiya Town, the eruption of the Tidal Night, and the rumors that terrified the outer borders..."

Cillian muttered to himself, "This series of events has already caused panic in the city council, but what did they do after the panic subsided?"

“They were investigating the Claws before I joined the City Guard, but so far, all they've caught is Valerie, and it's all been thanks to me.”

"The City Guard is incredibly inefficient," Cillian remarked sarcastically.

"You're planning to handle all of this by yourself?"

Bruce thought Cillian was crazy... no, he'd never really been normal.

Cillian naturally pulled Bruce along.

"Me and you?" Bruce quickly distanced himself. "No, no, no, only you."

Cillian completely disregarded Bruce's thoughts and continued speaking to himself.

"It's still too much for us, just the two of us and the dog, to fight against the Claws."

"Fuck you!"

Similarly, Cillian ignored Bruce's curses.

"Since we are outnumbered and outgunned, we must make use of everything we can."

Cillian, carrying the grotesque head, walked outside. "It's time to put some pressure on the City Guard."

……

The pointer points into the red zone, and a crisp bell rings.

Within seconds, a hand reached out from under the covers and slammed the alarm clock down, stopping the ringing abruptly.

"what……"

Meifuni let out a long groan, stretched out her limbs like a cat, and sat up unsteadily, her hair hanging down in disarray, her eyes glazed over, and her expression blank.

This malfunction lasted for about a minute before she gradually regained consciousness.

"Damn, my head hurts so much."

Meifuni covered her head; even after a night's sleep, she was still exhausted.

On weekdays, Maefuni lives a very disciplined life. Every day, before the lighthouse is extinguished, she gets up early, washes and changes clothes, and prepares to start the day.

But ever since the Valerie incident, Mafone's life has been filled with noisy noise.

Meifuni's life remained disciplined, and her biological clock was perfectly in sync, but her mental state was deteriorating, plagued by nightmares, insomnia, and excessive sentimentality over everything that happened.

The source of the change came from that day.

“Cillian…”

Whenever MaeFone's mind was in turmoil, she would think of Cillian.

Meifuni once asked him privately.

"After all this has happened, are you able to sleep well?"

Cillian remained nonchalant. "What's wrong with not sleeping well?"

"But I can't sleep well, I keep thinking about random things... It's really uncomfortable."

Maefuni was extremely depressed at the time, and she thought that her new friend Cillian would say a few words of comfort to her, but she heard him say something very blunt.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it. They deserve it."

"what?"

Cillian's words were so aggressive that Maefoni didn't react for a moment.

"Shouldn't you...shouldn't you comfort me?"

As she said this, Mefuni was on the verge of tears. "So, did you come to me seeking comfort, or to seek a solution?"

Mefuni's aggrieved look did nothing to move Cillian.

"If you're looking for comfort, I'll treat you to dessert after get off work, and it'll be on me."

Cillian's tone was tinged with amusement.

"But if it's about solving a problem, this is my answer: if you can't sleep at night because of this, that's your own problem, and no one else can help you with that."

Finally, Cillian offered encouragement.

“You only have yourself, Mafone.”

As the first light of dawn streamed into the room, Mafoni gazed at the pale blue horizon and murmured to herself.

"Am I all I have...?"

Even with poor sleep quality, Meifuni still changed into her workout clothes and started her morning run as usual.

"Huh...huh..."

With steady breathing, Maefuni's focus shifted from Valerie to Cillian.

Meghanie's last name is Love. From childhood to adulthood, everyone has tried to please her and admire her. Meghanie knows that this has nothing to do with her own charm, but is simply due to the power of her last name.

But she still habitually enjoyed it all, until she met Cillian.

Cillian always smiled, but he always had that aloof and unapproachable demeanor, like a rough, cold piece of iron...

For some reason, a competitive spirit rose in Meifuni's heart.

She wasn't sure if it was a perverse sense of humor or a desire to conquer, but she wanted to see how Ciri fawned over her, even if the next second she would disgustedly categorize Ciri with those mediocre people.

With that thought in mind, Meifuni ran from the inner city to the outer city, heading along the Flower River.

Sweat soaked through my clothes and dampened my hair. The slightly chilly morning breeze brushed against my skin, making my groggy mind exceptionally clear.

Finally, Maefuni arrived at the end of her morning run, a memorial square located near the City Guard Bureau.

As dawn broke, the gray fog outside the high walls gradually dissipated, and the lighthouses dimmed and went out.

The bright afterglow shone on the bronze sculpture in the center of the memorial square. It depicted a woman holding a long sword and a torch. Over the years, the wind and rain have caused rust to grow and obscure the woman's original features.

Behind the woman, there were many more figures wielding swords or torches, but like the woman, they too have faded into history.

Mephoni knew the origin of the sculpture. Hull was founded during the Sixth Crusade, when an expeditionary force split from the Torchbearers reclaimed the land from the evils of Chaos and rebuilt the city.

To commemorate their achievements, people erected this sculpture and named the city after them.

Herl.

However, with the changing times and the disintegration of the world, many past events have become untraceable.

Even now, the wisest scholars in the city of Hel are unsure whether the so-called "Hel" refers to a woman, an expedition, or even a clan.

But this doesn't stop Mafoni from standing under the sculpture and feeling the grandeur and magnificence of the past. At this moment, she feels her own insignificance, and even the troubles and bitterness in her heart disappear.

Golden sunlight fell on the rusty sword tip, the most magnificent moment of the day for the sculpture.

Meifuni was stunned.

She wondered if she was seeing things and rubbed her eyes hard, but nothing in front of her changed.

On the tip of the sword in the sculpture, a decaying head covered with hyphae and spores is stuck, and the hyphae are corroding the sculpture itself, crawling wildly along the blade, covered with pus-like fungi, transforming it from an inanimate object into some kind of chaotic living thing.

Below the sword tip, a headless corpse was suspended by a rope, swaying slightly in the wind, with a sharp iron feather stuck in its heart.

This terrifying sight quickly attracted the attention of others, who surrounded the sculpture. Some extraordinary individuals sensed the presence of chaotic power and dispersed the crowd, creating distance between them.

"Is this a provocation from the evils of Chaos?" Mephoni muttered to herself.

"This is not the work of the Chaos Evils."

A kind laugh rang out, and an elderly man walked through the crowd, a golden shield pinned to his chest, with three rivers intersecting beneath his scepter.

That's the symbol of a member of the city-state council.

"Consul Peggy?"

Meifuni was frequently dragged to various family dinners, and she already knew most of the city councilors.

Good morning, children of the Love family.

Peggy greeted Maefoni with a smile, and despite the blasphemous scene before her, she was as happy as if she were seeing some kind of beautiful sight.

She came to the sculpture, and the curled wooden staff in her hand unfurled, transforming into branches to remove something from the hanged corpse.

"Many years have passed, so of course you young people don't know his story."

As Peggy spoke, she carefully wiped the things she had taken off with her sleeve, completely unconcerned about their dirtiness.

"This is his declaration of war against the chaos and evil."

Peggy wiped it clean and held it up; in the sunlight, a sharp iron feather caught Mafone's eye.

She asked instinctively, "Who is he?"

Peggy was overjoyed.

"Reverse Falcon".

(End of this chapter)