The light inside the Lamp-Lighting Room was dim, even carrying a strange, eerie aura of death.
The surrounding walls were covered in holy lanterns, their flames lined up row upon row, emitting a blinding white glare.
In the center stood a massive silver cauldron. Milky-white grease bubbled inside, stirred with long-handled silver spoons by several lamp-lighting monks surrounding it.
Tiny golden flecks floated on the surface of the grease, still retaining the lingering holy essence of a unicorn.
Isolde paused the moment she stepped through the door.
A thick stench of blood drifted from the shadows to her right.
She casually turned her head.
Bound haphazardly to iron racks deep within the Lamp-Lighting Room were over a dozen ordinary civilians.
Men and women alike, their chests had been brutally carved open, leaving gaping, bloody holes. They had long stopped breathing, their bodies already stiff.
And on a long table near the silver cauldron lay several hearts, still faintly beating.
A lamp-lighting monk was using a small knife to scrape off a bit of grease, carefully smearing it onto the surface of a heart.
The moment the heart, which had been on the verge of failing, came into contact with the grease, it seemed to be refueled, suddenly throbbing violently.
The monk opened a holy lantern, pulled out a clump of blackened material from inside, and tossed it into a crate at his feet.
Then, as if cradling some sacred relic, he lifted the heart with both hands and placed it steadily inside the holy lantern.
In the next second, the extinguished holy lantern flared to life, bursting with blinding white light.
Isolde suddenly felt the holy lantern she was holding become utterly repulsive.
The so-called “holy lanterns” actually used the hearts of living humans as wicks, fueled by the rendered fat of slaughtered unicorns.
No wonder they could expose the so-called “corruption.” No wonder they could burn endlessly in the wind.
Because what they burned was not holy light at all, but the lives of living humans.
One of the lamp-lighting monks looked up and saw her, his tone urgent:
“A newly brought lantern? Put it over there and wait.”
Isolde lowered her head in response, walked over to the designated stone platform, and eagerly set her lantern down.
Over a dozen holy lanterns waiting to be refueled sat on the stone platform, and every single one represented a living life about to be harvested.
In her past life, she had seen players kill for loot, and she had seen monsters devour humans.
Yet the Holy Court's practice of slaughtering their own kind on an assembly line while cloaking themselves in a sacred, merciful guise still made her feel physically nauseous.
Isolde suddenly recalled the original owner of this body, who was also a maniac fond of playing with corpses.
She had loved stitching lingering souls into exquisite dolls, turning defeated generals into obedient toys, and her eyes would even gleam with a near-obsessive fanaticism whenever she watched those so-called “strong experts” get tortured.
The memories of this body were still there.
Those spells, those techniques, and that nauseating knowledge now lay quietly in her mind.
If she wanted to, she could even point out where these lamp-lighting monks were being sloppy and which method of carving out a heart was superior.
A mocking sneer tugged at the corner of Isolde's lips.
How utterly perfect.
What was this?
One psychopath looking at other psychopaths and actually developing a professional critique.
However, that was the old “Isolde,” not the current her.
The current her had the right to choose what kind of villain she wanted to be.
“You over there! What are you spacing out for? Yes, you!”
An angry shout abruptly snapped Isolde out of her thoughts.
A burly lamp-lighting monk stood by the silver cauldron, wearing a half-face splash guard that only revealed his eyes, which were red from the rising steam.
He held a slender heart-carving knife in his hand, thick blood dripping from its sharp tip.
“Come and give me a hand!” the monk said impatiently, tapping the iron rack beside him with the tip of his knife. “This specimen has a good foundation. His heart is strong, perfect for keeping the main lantern in the Main Hall burning.”
Following the direction of his knife, a young man was bound to the nearest iron rack.
He looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, his face pale as paper, with sweat plastering his messy black hair to his forehead.
A shallow bloody gash had already been sliced across his chest, and blood was trickling down his ribs.
The heart-carving monk grabbed a silver tray and shoved it into Isolde's hands without taking no for an answer.
“Hold it steady! Once I carve out the heart, smear it with grease immediately. If you're too slow and the heart stops beating after being removed, and the Main Hall's holy lantern goes out, both of us will be whipped in the Discipline Office!”
Another lamp-lighting monk nearby couldn't help but urge, “Hurry up. Someone from the Discipline Office's outer corridor just brought word. Once we're done with this batch, we need to head to the dungeon to evaluate the newly captured witch hunters.”
The man on the iron rack seemed to hear the commotion. His eyelids fluttered violently, and his cracked lips moved, letting out a faint whisper.
“I know, I know, stop nagging. Those witch hunters spend all day running with mutts, so how clean could their foundations be? Coming across this one is already a blessing from the Holy Light,” the monk grumbled.
Isolde took a few steps closer, holding the silver tray.
But when she got a clear look at the face on the iron rack, smeared with blood and sweat, her gaze froze slightly.
This face... looked familiar.
Alvin?
Could Alvin, the brother Colin was so desperate to save, have ended up right in front of her by some bizarre twist of fate?
The heart-carving monk didn't notice Isolde's reaction at all, nor did he care to listen to a condemned man's last words. With a sinister laugh, he raised his long knife, pressing its cold tip against the man's chest.
“Hold his shoulders. Don't let him squirm.”
Isolde stood in place, holding the tray, and didn't budge.
The heart-carving monk frowned. “Are you deaf?”
The other monks stirring the silver cauldron also stopped their movements and looked over.
For a moment, heat billowed through the Lamp-Lighting Room, and the countless blazing white holy lanterns around them made the atmosphere incredibly suffocating.
Seeing no movement from his “subordinate,” a violent rage finally flared in the heart-carving monk's eyes.
He threw the tray aside and reached out to grab Isolde's wrist. “What the hell are you—”
Before he could finish, a faint sound like cracking glass suddenly echoed from the entrance of the Lamp-Lighting Room.
Sensing danger, the heart-carving monk spun around. “Who's there?!”
However, he was greeted by a silver-white sword light carrying a fierce wind pressure, violently slicing through the gap in the door.
The two lamp-lighting monks closest to the door didn't even have time to scream before they were sent flying, slamming heavily against the stone wall.
The sudden turn of events caused everyone in the room to pale, and a shrill alarm burst from their lips:
“Intruder—”
Unfortunately, the intruder's speed was beyond common sense.
A second crescent-shaped sword light swept across like a full moon, instantly slitting their throats.
Within just two or three breaths, the stifling Lamp-Lighting Room was silent, leaving only steaming corpses scattered across the floor—with the sole exception of Isolde.
Isolde was still wearing her signature grey robes, with the holy lantern by her right side, and she was even holding the heart-carving knife she had casually picked up in her left hand.
No matter how one looked at her, she seemed like a survivor from the monastery's side.
Having succeeded in a single strike, the black shadow didn't pause for a second. The chill of the blade suddenly lunged toward Isolde's throat.
It was too fast. Before Isolde could even channel her Soul Threads, the longsword emitting a faint silver glow was already pressed against her neck.
The sharp sword qi silently sheared off a few loose strands of hair by her ear.
“Don't move.” Underneath the hood, a pair of strikingly bright eyes stared at her. “Behave. Where is the Reliquary?”
Isolde lowered her eyes slightly, her gaze falling on the edge of the blade just millimeters from her skin.
This sword was no ordinary weapon; its hilt was engraved with runes of “Armor Penetration” and “Sharpness.”
And looking at her sleek, clean night-travel gear...
Just then, because of the sudden burst of violence, the hood on the intruder's head slipped back, revealing a young face.
The woman had sharp eyebrows, and her eyes held an indescribable tenacity.
Isolde withdrew her gaze, instantly understanding the situation.
This was no native rebel.
This was a top-tier player with exceptional gear, specializing in an agility-burst build.
Judging by her technique and the fluid connection of her skills, she was likely a powerhouse who would rank in the top hundred of the leaderboard in the late game.
Seeing that the “grey-robed NPC” before her was silent like an idiot, the hooded woman impatiently pressed the blade forward a fraction, drawing a thin line of blood.
“Playing dumb, are we?” She stared at Isolde, her tone heavy with interrogation. “Speak up, or I'll slit your throat.”
Isolde looked at her and suddenly spoke, “Turn left out the door.”
“And then?”
“Take Chenghua Avenue to Erxian Bridge.”
The hooded woman froze.
The hand holding the sword stopped mid-air, and the cold expression on her face cracked bit by bit, as if she had just heard something incredibly absurd yet incredibly familiar.
She sucked in a breath, her eyes nearly popping out of her head.
“Holy crap! A compatriot?!”
Isolde had only tried the meme on a whim to see if she could avoid a tough fight. She hadn't expected the other party's reaction to be even more dramatic than she had anticipated.
She raised her hand and pushed the blade aside, rubbing her neck—which had almost been severed—with a sigh, and dryly remarked:
“Your way of recognizing a fellow countryman is a bit too sharp, don't you think?”
The high-tier Holy Swordsman, Luo Jiuge, had never been this embarrassed in her life.
Her face flushed a rare red, and she said sheepishly, “Ah, sorry, sorry! Who told you to dress exactly like an NPC? What's your situation? An undercover identity? A stealth faction mission? Or were you just incredibly unlucky at the start and got dragged to this sweatshop to do forced labor?”
Isolde rolled her eyes. “You're asking too many questions at once.”
Seeing that her compatriot didn't want to elaborate, Luo Jiuge didn't mind. Instead, she grinned.
Heaven knew how long she had been suffocating in this bizarre world full of riddles and psychopaths. Today, she had finally run into someone who spoke her language.
“Well, they say when compatriots meet, tears flow. If you don't want to talk about it, I won't ask.”
She casually sheathed her sword at her waist and glanced down at the monks' corpses littering the floor.
Normally, she would have knelt to loot all the materials and coin purses off these elite mobs, but right now, her attention was entirely on Isolde.
“Let's introduce ourselves properly. I'm Luo Jiuge, class: 【Holy Swordsman】. A while ago, I picked up a hidden bounty outside. I heard Grey Dove Monastery was hiding a piece of high-tier gear, so I thought I'd come and solo the dungeon.”
At this point, she turned her head, her gaze falling on the disemboweled corpses of the civilians.
The slight smile on her face gradually cooled, turning into pure disgust.
“I thought it was just a regular cult outpost where I could clear the mobs, grab the rewards, and leave. I didn't expect... these people to be so disgusting.”
Isolde glanced at the silver cauldron where the unicorn fat was still bubbling, letting out a cold, humorless laugh.
“Get used to it. In this broken world, methods far more despair-inducing than this have long ceased to be anything new.”
Rate on N.U.
