Cheng Zhishan stared blankly at the scene unfolding before him, then was struck in the back by the malevolent ghost controlled by Jiang Ziang.
"Urgh!"
Cheng Zhishan spat out a mouthful of blood and stumbled forward. He struggled to lift his head, staring intently at the Bedfellow on the high platform. His voice trembled, seemingly from the shock of betrayal.
"City Lord, wh... why?
"Weren't we supposed to protect Lantao City and maintain stability?
"These people—they are your subjects! What... what have you done?"
While struggling to fend off Jian Huaishuang's increasingly fierce offensive, the Bedfellow responded coldly, "Sacrifice the few for the sake of the many.
"There is no more crying, no more resistance, and no more fear.
"Their dreams and souls will merge into the pure land of Sukhavati, obtaining eternal peace.
"Cheng Zhishan, do you still not understand?
"They have simply become a part of the Bodhisattva's pure land.
"This is stability."
All of Cheng Zhishan's beliefs, all his compromises, and all his self-preservation were crushed into powder before those icy words.
The one he had been guarding was actually such a monster.
The thing he had been pursuing was actually such a massacre.
His so-called pragmatic realism was nothing more than acting as an accomplice to evil.
"Haha... Hahahaha!"
Cheng Zhishan suddenly burst into laughter, laughing until tears streamed down his face, mixing with the bloody foam at the corners of his mouth.
He remembered many, many years ago.
Back then, he wasn't a commander; he was just an ordinary recruit who had just joined the Blackwater Guard.
On a similarly dark night, he had stood before the stone statue of the Wanshou Tortoise at the commandery office. Alongside a group of equally young and hot-blooded companions, he had raised his spear high and sworn an oath.
"Since I have entered the Blackwater Guard, I have already set aside life and death!
"Protect the land and the people! Guard my commandery!
"Even if I do not meet a peaceful end, I shall never break the integrity of my human race!"
He had once been just like Xing Yue—full of loyalty and courage, hating evil with a passion.
When did he change?
Was it when he started drifting in the currents of officialdom and learned to weigh pros and cons?
Was it when he witnessed too much darkness and powerlessness and chose to compromise?
Or was it for the sake of the official's hat on his head, for the so-called 'greater picture', that he abandoned his original oath step by step and became the man he was today—a man he himself loathed?
Cheng Zhishan didn't know.
He only knew that as a man who was most adept at self-preservation, the most realistic and most cowardly of men, he now had nowhere left to retreat.
He slowly stood up straight and wiped the blood from his mouth.
"Brothers," he said, his voice not loud, "it seems... we were wrong."
He didn't wait for his subordinates to answer. Instead, he picked up his spear from the ground.
This time, the tip of the spear was pointed at the high-and-mighty City Lord.
"Blackwater Guard, follow me..."
He paused; he didn't know what to shout.
"...Follow me in the charge! With the spears in your hands, for our human race, protect the land and settle the borders!"
Cheng Zhishan—this man who had been smooth and pragmatic his entire life, this commander who knew best how to save his own skin—at this final moment, made the most unrealistic choice.
He didn't charge toward the Bedfellow; he knew he wasn't qualified.
Dragging his heavily injured body, he charged toward the densest area of dreamlight—toward those white cocoons that had just been transformed from city residents!
He wanted to use this long-tarnished husk of a body to fight for even a sliver of life for the citizens he had failed.
"Roar—!"
Cheng Zhishan erupted with the strongest spiritual power of his life, but it wasn't to kill an enemy—it was to self-detonate.
"Commander!!" the remaining Blackwater Guards watched their superior in horror.
Cheng Zhishan felt his skin burning and his consciousness rapidly fading.
He saw his hands. Just like the citizens before him, they were beginning to grow white webs.
"Integrity..."
He murmured to himself, revealing a smile of relief.
"...At least, it's still there."
"Boom—!"
The self-detonation of a fourth-stage peak cultivator exploded in the heart of the thickest dreamlight!
The violent spiritual shockwave, mixed with Cheng Zhishan's flesh and blood, temporarily tore apart the dream domain constructed by the Bedfellow.
The dreamlight stuttered.
Cheng Zhishan's body disintegrated in the explosion, but at the final moment of his consciousness fading, he seemed to see his younger self from many years ago—the one under the banner of the Blackwater Guard, high-spirited and swearing to protect the commandery to the death.
Integrity... It turned out he had remembered it all along.
The most pragmatic of men, standing before the abyss, finally burned away his last bit of human integrity.
In the sky, the Bedfellow, who was enjoying the return of his power, suddenly shuddered.
On the human husk that had only just begun to heal, all the cracks instantly burst open, becoming even more severe than before!
"Cheng Zhishan... you damned ant!" the Bedfellow cursed.
He had gathered the citizens specifically to forcibly absorb them as sacrifices to mend himself while he was heavily injured, and simultaneously offer the final batch of nourishment to the Bodhisattva's pure land.
But he never expected that this man—the most stable tool in his eyes—would ultimately betray him in such a decisive manner.
The dreamlight fell into a moment of stagnation and chaos.
Jian Huaishuang's sword had been waiting.
No matter how frenzied the Bedfellow became or how many dreams he devoured, Jian Huaishuang's mind had remained locked onto the weakest point of the enemy's aura.
The dark red mark on that human husk's face, branded there by the Master himself.
He was waiting for a gap—a gap sufficient to pour in death qi and completely sever the enemy's life.
And Cheng Zhishan's dreamlight-shaking self-detonation was that singular gap.
The dreamlight stalled, the Bedfellow's aura became chaotic due to the backlash, and a momentary void appeared in his protective dreamlight.
Now!
The cold glint in Jian Huaishuang's eyes surged. Death qi and sword intent merged perfectly upon his blade as the giant sword swung down.
The Bedfellow only had time to see a grey shadow flash across his vision before the Calamity Brand on his face turned scalding hot.
"No—!"
He tried to condense dreamlight; he tried to shift his form once more.
But it was too late.
The sword qi sliced with peerless precision through the brand and through his fragile neck.
The wound, eroded by death qi, instantly turned into paper.
The Bedfellow's ever-changing face finally froze in an expression of extreme shock.
Immediately after, the light in his eyes faded rapidly, and all the dreamlight dissipated from his body. In the next moment, his head was separated from his torso.
With the Bedfellow's complete death, the dreamlight in the sky receded, and the white webs writhing on the ground quickly withered.
Beneath the Bedfellow's shattered human husk, a ball of light emerged.
【broken divinity — deception】.
Jian Huaishuang reached out, and the point of light obediently fell into his palm, where he temporarily stored it.
At that very moment, a hole seemed to be torn in the dark sky.
A ray of true morning dawn pierced through the darkness, projecting onto the scarred central square.
Jian Huaishuang sheathed his sword and stood silently in the square. He looked toward that ray of dawn, knowing that the Master must have succeeded.
This long, eerie night was finally coming to an end.
Dawn was coming.
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