Chapter 1021: Chapter 790: Covenant (2)
"The result was that we secured the safety of hundreds of millions and the stability of Yingzhou."
Le Ne answered coldly: "For that, the people who were sacrificed are beyond counting—did you really think you were the only Hero, Huai Shi?
Do you have any idea how much we’ve paid to maintain this operation?
Not just the Tanbo Inner Circle. Eight years ago, to drive out the erosion of the Element of Destructive... Poxun, the whole of Manchester was completely purified. Three years ago, the border Avalon held on until the last thousand people, then a collective Sacrificial, permanently sealed off before sinking into Hell. Two years ago in Chengdu, the Primordial sank, and the Dongxia Branch’s elite units lost more than three thousand people. Four years ago in Rome’s Florence, just to rescue two hundred survivors, the branch carried out a collective zombification.
The Madagascar massacre, the Hindenburg slaughter, the Feuerbach incident... aside from the handful of people, including you, who achieved anything, everyone else died, nameless and unnoticed!
If you want to avoid those horrific outcomes, you have to make brutal choices, there has to be Sacrificial!"
Le Ne asked coldly: "Huai Shi, why is it that everyone else in this world can be sacrificed, but those Hybrids can’t? Is it because they were born noble?!"
"Because Sacrificial and consumption are two different things—"
Huai Shi raised his voice, suppressing his anger as he retorted: "They aren’t lowly, and they’re not a threat. All they want is to live a decent life! Just staying alive is already hard enough, and yet some people who claim to hold justice in their hands still want to push them into a real Hell!"
That stubborn, intractable look made Le Ne completely lose his patience.
He coldly flipped open the file before him, pushed it over, and pointed at the empty space at the bottom.
It was the Tanbo Inner Circle campus operation permit.
"Sign it, take what I’m giving you, and leave, Huai Shi." he said impatiently. "And don’t ever appear in front of me again."
Huai Shi lowered his head, looking at the file in front of him.
Once he signed this, from that moment on, the Tanbo Inner Circle would truly gain its freedom.
This day had finally come.
Yet for some reason, he suddenly remembered Tobio’s once-joyful smile.
That was the salvation that old man had yearned for his entire life, but when this day finally came, he could no longer see it.
For this mirage-like hope, how many people had struggled in agony in Hell.
Tobio Souhei, Chiba Ryouni, and even the despairing God City Future.
The number of people who died for this is beyond counting.
Ushijima, Ms. Ochiai, Akasaki...
Now that this moment had finally arrived, Huai Shi could not feel any joy or happiness. Instead, thinking of those who had died, he couldn’t help but want to cry.
"...This is the treasure of those who were sacrificed, Le Ne."
Huai Shi murmured softly.
They sacrificed everything for this, gave everything, waited a lifetime, for the treasure they wanted to defend and obtain.
Le Ne said nothing. He only lifted his hand coldly and passed the pen for signing over.
Huai Shi closed his eyes and sighed silently.
He reached out, gripped the pen, and drew it out.
In that very instant, thunder exploded.
Huai Shi lifted his eyes toward the man before him, and in his pitch-black pupils flared a fierce light, like lightning bursting from thunderclouds.
The distance of a single step was ripped apart in an instant by the pen’s tip as it drove into Le Ne’s throat!
In a heartbeat, blood sprayed out.
The skin on Huai Shi’s arm cracked inch by inch, bone fissures burst open; under the backlash of the protection on Le Ne’s body, his fingers twisted into grotesque shapes.
"I don’t need you to give it, Le Ne."
He answered softly, "What they left behind, I’ll take myself."
Le Ne froze in place, lowering his head in disbelief to see the pen that had pierced through his own throat.
His eyes widened.
Almost instantly, a healing radiance descended from above, enveloping him. Then a shrill sound burst forth, echoing in the ears of everyone in the branch at that moment, spreading the alarm!
Right then, in Huai Shi’s hand, the pen was slowly drawn out. His five twisted and broken fingers clenched it tight, and with a thread of crimson, it left a blood-stained name on the paper.
When the reception room’s door exploded, and the Sublimators guarding the place rushed in, what they saw was that blood-scribed contract.
And at the two ends of the long table, the two men staring at each other indifferently—
Huai Shi calmly set the pen down beside the file, raised his head, and looked down at the opponent before him, arrogant and cold, as if he weren’t the one who had just attacked a high-ranking member of the Astronomical Society.
Even if one word from Le Ne would see him thrown into the Sea Trench Prison, never to see daylight again.
But he didn’t feel any regret.
On the contrary, he felt as if a weight had been lifted, an indescribable clarity and relief.
He finally no longer had to put on that fake smile in the face of everything. Maybe this was the darkness and ferocity that truly belonged to him, hidden beneath that vain Hero’s Halo?
Just seeing the man before him made him want to chop off his head.
Made him want to kill him.
Just as the other man wanted to kill him as well.
Yet in the end, Le Ne did not speak. He only lifted his eyes, heavy with shadow, and stared at him coldly, letting the blood flow out from the rapidly closing wound on his throat.
No impulsive outburst, no needless complications, holding his anger in check.
Like any qualified bureaucrat.
Always rational.
He merely raised his hand and pointed at the door.
"Get out, Huai Shi." he said. "Don’t waste any more of my time."
