Chapter 100: Giving the Rich Old Lady Some Face
“If hurt enough, then use a hand to neatly slit open…”
Igora let out a long sigh after staying up all night, jumping out of bed ready to head out, but he stopped when he reached the door.
“Why am I in such a hurry? Wouldn’t it be even better if he died?”
Igora shook his head and went back to the bathroom to take a bath as usual. But this time he didn’t have the usual comfort and relaxation during his bath. He hurriedly dried himself after soaking for a while, then went to brush his teeth to activate his divination spirit.
However, the prerequisite for resonating with the divination spirit is to keep a natural calm state of mind, and Igora was in a complete mess right now. He didn’t have any hope for it. But somehow, the divination spirit still activated, leaving a line of words in the toothpaste foam on the mirror:
“Don’t be too surprised.”
Surprised about what?
Could Ashe really be dead?
A chill went through Igora’s heart. Seeing how concerned Gerard was about Ashe yesterday, he realized that the hunter captain had come for that whimsical cult leader.
Although transporting prisoners and assisting the prison in arranging the Blood Moon Tribunal were also part of a hunter’s job, it was by no means necessary for the law enforcement captain to be present. With Gerard’s status, he could have easily refused work he wasn’t interested in, so the fact he came to Shattered Lake must mean someone had aroused his interest!
If that was all, it would be fine, Ashe could just sacrifice some skin. But Igora also accidentally found out that people like Gerard had legal immunity!
In the Blood Moon Kingdom, the law is the will of God, rules are the desires of God, and cannot be violated or defied! As long as you are proven guilty of a crime, whether you are the permanent secretary, the mayor of Caimon, a wealthy merchant, you must be tried according to the law, with no room for negotiation!
To this day, Igora still couldn’t forget watching the elegant man on the light screen with an indifferent expression being torn to shreds by the executioner thirteen years ago at the annual nationwide Blood Moon Grand Trial he saw at the orphanage!
That man was the legendary mage ‘Silent Performer’ Teres Goldo! A legend in the Blood Moon Kingdom for nearly a hundred years! A mage with four wings fully spread, almost reaching the realm of divinity!
However, even such a powerful person, as the price for violating the law, still had to endure the punishment of the trial’s iron hammer!
It was also from that day that Igora completely determined his own development path.
In the Blood Moon Kingdom, true strength lies in discerning the rules, utilizing the rules, and controlling the rules. Otherwise, no matter how strong your abilities, you are still just a slightly stronger ant in front of the laws instituted by the gods.
But in his many years as an ‘insurance agent’, Igora accidentally learned that some people had legal immunity – even if they committed illegal acts, the law would not punish them. On the contrary, the parliament and church still had to protect them and control public opinion to quell the turmoil.
These people were extremely rare in number, and had to meet two criteria: first, they must be of the Sacred Bloodline or Moonshadow; second, they must hold important positions!
The former was easy to understand. The Sacred Bloodline and Moonshadow were the favored races of the Archlunar, and most privileges would fall to these two races, so no one would be dissatisfied – if you don’t like it, take the exam! Any race could transform into the Sacred Bloodline or Moonshadow by passing the assessment, and the research institutes and churches recruited new members every year.
The latter ‘important position’, however, was somewhat questionable, because in the eyes of most ordinary people, the mayors of the administrative halls and members of parliament were the important positions, but that was not the case in reality.
The three most important institutions in the Blood Moon Kingdom were the ‘Heresy Court’ with law enforcement powers, the ‘War Zones’ responsible for suppressing the Abyss all over, and the ‘Beloved Church’ that oversees all orphanages, maternity hospitals, and is responsible for population statistics.
The bishops of the church, commanders of the war zones, and captains of the hunter squads were the three most important positions.
Among them, the church bishops must be of the Moonshadow, the commanders of the war zones could only be held by the Sacred Bloodline, while the captains of the hunter squads were open to both races. So it was these three types of people who had legal immunity!
Gerard Wessminster was a member of the privileged class who could ignore the law!
In other words, even if Gerard and Ashe went into the bedroom together, and only Gerard came out, Gerard would not be punished at all. He could even pretend nothing had happened.
However, many people in the prison thought Gerard was probably just catching up with Ashe, at most engaging in some friendly sparring – the one-sided kind for Ashe – and then it would be over.
After all, Ashe was on death row in prison, Gerard had no reason to tarnish his reputation over this condemned man. To put it bluntly, killing Ashe would only dirty Gerard’s hands.
Igora had thought so too, but halfway through the night he suddenly realized a problem.
The crux of the matter wasn’t whether Gerard was willing, but whether he could – why did Gerard ask to stay with Ashe? He was judging whether Ashe had any value to him for committing a crime!
At that time, Igora felt that Ashe was done for. With Ashe’s low EQ, undeveloped brain, and infantile facial expression management, Gerard might kill him just from looking displeased.
But wasn’t this great? With Ashe dead, he didn’t need to fulfill Ashe’s wish anymore…
Just as Igora was convincing himself while walking into the cafeteria, he saw an unimaginable scene: Ashe and Gerard were eating breakfast face to face, even chatting and laughing.
It seemed Ashe had told a really lame joke, and the arrogant, cold-blooded white-haired hunter actually burst out laughing, with the decibel levels even exceeding the ‘Public Space Management Regulations’. A death row inmate would definitely have been muted by the chip for that.
“Ah, Igora, over here!” Ashe spotted Igora at a glance and waved at him.
Don’t act like you’ve got such good eyesight at other times… Igora, who wanted to observe the situation from the side, was forced to reluctantly bring his breakfast over. “Good morning you two, did you sleep well last night?”
“Yes, very well.” Gerard said, “The lodging environment here is better than my home, though I haven’t slept for many years. Luckily Ashe was here so I wasn’t bored.”
“Oh?” Igora raised his eyebrows.
“I was up late playing with Gerard last night,” Ashe shrugged. “Haven’t had such a good time in a long while.”
Playing? Igora and those nearby had subtle expressions.
“If you want, you can stay another night. I’ll give you a chance to make a comeback. But you need to change your impatient habits. I didn’t even go all out last night and you had already finished yourself off.”
The expressions of the nearby death row inmates grew even more bizarre, and the way they looked at Gerard changed as well – Gerard was actually no match for Ashe?
Tsk tsk, ‘Heretic’ Ashe was surprisingly terrifying!
They knew Ashe was brought back by Gerard himself, but after just one night, Gerard had been conquered by Ashe like this!
No wonder he could become a saint favored by the Four Pillars, no wonder he could become the only one in the past century to form a cult in the Blood Moon Kingdom!
As expected of Ashe Heath, easily accomplishing what we cannot!
Imperceptibly, ‘Heretic’ Ashe had already become the revered king of death row inmates in Shattered Lake Prison – though still a death row inmate.
Igora directly dragged Ashe to the Sea View Tower rooftop. The transport ship carrying the Blood Mad Hunters had just set sail, breaking through the surging waters of Shattered Lake and sailing north. Many early rising fin sharks were very active, greeting the hull of the ship with their teeth, the scales glittering brightly as sunlight hit them.
“What were you playing with him last night?”
Ashe was slightly taken aback – that’s your first question?
“What else could we play? Of course it was cards.”
“Cards?” Igora was confused for a moment. “What card game?”
As a highly developed fantasy society, the Blood Moon Kingdom naturally also had playing cards, though there were some differences in the details, but largely similar. Ashe found they didn’t have the ‘Blackjack’ 21-point game here, so he modified the rules a bit to teach Gerard, and the two played Blackjack all night.
Although Gerard learned it very quickly, his playing style was unexpectedly aggressive, and he often accidentally busted. So Ashe abused him all night.
Igora’s eyes lit up when he heard about this game: “Not a bad game. If the casinos knew about it, it would definitely become a wildly popular gambling game… But didn’t Gerard intend to do anything to you? I thought he came specifically for you.”
Ashe looked at Igora: “You’re worried about me?”
“Of course, you still owe me a wish.” Igora said calmly: “If you die who can I get payment from? In this world, only I lend to others, no one can owe me.”
“Indeed, no matter how lonely a person is, there will always be someone missing them – such as the tax department and creditors.” Ashe quipped, then continued, “It was Professor Sylin who asked him to come kill me.”
“What?” Igora was shocked: “Sylin actually… Then how did you get away with it? If Gerard wanted to kill you, no one in Shattered Lake Prison could protect you!”
Ashe proudly said: “Of course it was thanks to my sincere gaze, kind heart, and eloquent persuasion!”
“Don’t joke around, I’m being serious.”
“I’m not joking! I really reasoned with him, touched his heart, and then he gave up killing me and played cards with me all night instead.”
Igora looked at Ashe for a good while, confirming he wasn’t lying. He could no longer keep a straight face.
A three-winged Sacred Bloodline mage who had lived over a hundred years was actually easily persuaded by Ashe?
Unless you’re also a telepath, Ashe? Otherwise it’s hard to explain how you grasped a hypnotic technique to control Sanctum powerhouses.
Or could this be the might of the Four Pillars? Allowing Ashe to unknowingly alter the will of others?
Igora watched the transport ship that was about to disappear over the horizon, and suddenly recalled something: “You said Gerard played Blackjack with you all night, and he lost more than he won?”
Ashe shrugged: “Yeah, I didn’t expect Gerard to be so weak.”
Igora wanted to say something, but held it in.
In his opinion, although Blackjack had ever-changing gameplay, for a three-winged Sanctum mage, that bit of computational power was negligible. Theoretically, Gerard could rely on his memory and calculation abilities to grasp all the cards of both sides, and even calculate his optimal decision.
Even if it was his first time, he should have quickly mastered it, not lose more than he won.
But maybe Ashe was just really good at Blackjack, Igora thought.
On the transport ship, a group of Blood Mad Hunters were playing cards.
“Ah-ha.” Gerard flipped over the hole card, “Just 21, I win, 5 silver coins from each.”
“No way, Captain you can’t play!” one hunter said, “You’re cheating!”
“You guys washed and dealt the cards, I didn’t use any spirits, how could I cheat?” the white-haired hunter played innocent.
The hunter couldn’t help but curse, “Your memory and computational abilities are stronger than ours. From the moment we got our cards you analyzed all the situations already. How could we possibly win? You’re simply crushing us with your Sanctum abilities!”
“Alright alright, if you don’t want to play we won’t play.” Gerard whistled and walked over to the railing, gazing through the glass at Shattered Lake Prison gradually disappearing from sight.
A thin beastman hunter walked over. Unlike most hunters, he was thin, short, at first glance looking more like a goblin.
Yet like Gerard, he had crimson ruby eyes.
“Captain, I’m very curious,” he leaned on the railing and asked, “What exactly did Ashe Heath do to make you spare him?”
Gerard laughed. “How do you know I came for Heath?”
“It’s not your first time doing this.” Bas said. “The captain of law enforcement is often the one who breaks the law the most. I know who was behind Councilor Will’s assassination, Captain. Every time you want to do something, the whole Heresy Court has to clean up after you. It’s not even troublesome to go through the procedures…”
“But this is the duty the Archlunar has bestowed upon you, there must be meaning in it.”
“So I’m curious, because you have so many reasons to execute Ashe Heath, just being the leader of the Four Pillars Cult is enough for you to take action. And you must have obtained some intelligence that made you feel Heath was still dangerous, which is why you specifically came to Shattered Lake, right?”
Gerard leisurely said, “As expected, it’s just more comfortable using our own people, highly observant and smart. Compared to you, Emma is really useless…”
Bas raised his eyebrows: “Captain, you just violated regulations against gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and more in one sentence, even provoking conflict between the two lunar races. If others heard that, the Caimon media wouldn’t need any other news this month, just condemning you would fill their pages.”
Gerard just smiled and changed the topic. “As for Ashe Heath… you’re very right, he gave me far too many reasons to take action, like him reading the romance comics I hate most. ”
“So what did he do to make Captain reconsider?”
“He didn’t do anything, or rather, nothing he did swayed me. I spared him to give someone face.”
Bas was taken aback. “There’s still someone who needs you to give them face?”
“Of course.”
Gerard looked towards Shattered Lake Prison, about to vanish from sight, and recalled the crow uniform hidden under Ashe’s bed in his cell, as well as the sweet tangy smell of Ashe’s blood.
“I smelled the aura of colorless source blood.”
“As fellow alumni from the four great research institutes, I dare not snatch the long awaited offering of the new race.”
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