After discovering the nature of the Cult Leader’s ability, Guan Tong was at first stunned, then all the pieces suddenly fell into place about the Fire Thief Worship Cult. The cult’s claims — worshiping the Fire Thief as a deity, compiling the Doomsday Rules into doctrine, and so on — were a gigantic fraud from the very beginning. The purpose of the scam was obvious: if the Cult Leader wanted to ensure he stayed alive until all the Doomsday Rules ended, he needed a large supply of substitute lives. He could obtain some through mind control, but how could he get more? Once someone had the power to make others die in their place, and believed there was no limit to how many “backup lives” they could have, of course that person would want as many substitutes as possible, as many backups as possible. Thus the meticulously packaged Fire Thief Worship Cult was born.
The initial followers were naturally those already under mind control, and through scale effects and organized spreading they lured more uninformed people in. Some of those people may have genuinely believed the Fire Thief was a god and worshiped devoutly, some may have joined just to belong to a group and find comfort, but regardless of motive—na?veté, stupidity, or malice—once people came, they fell into the Cult Leader’s control. The number of followers snowballed, and the number of backup lives for the architect of this monstrous lie, the Cult Leader, naturally increased. Greed, however, is never satisfied. In the Doomsday Rules era, few people can feel truly secure. Driven by avarice, once the Cult Leader had two lives, he wanted ten; once he had ten, he wanted a hundred; once he had a hundred, he wanted ten thousand. Unchecked greed leads to an inevitable result: the Cult Leader would want everyone in the world, except himself, to become his substitute lives.
But deception alone could not win over staunch atheists or those who, while religious, absolutely refused to accept that the Fire Thief was a god. For the Cult Leader, those who would never be fooled by his lies had to be forced into submission by violence. Thus a holy war against heretics was born under that pretense; that pretense not only destroyed Fahe, it brought devastation to other nations, and countless people were affected. Judging by this, the reason the Fire Thief Worship Cult initially teamed up with the Prophet of the parasitized forms was likely that the Prophet wanted more manpower while the Cult Leader wanted more substitute believers. Even if their fundamental aims differed, their disregard for lives other than their own matched shockingly well. ...All of them deserved to die.
A killing intent sharpened in Guan Tong’s eyes. At that moment the Cult Leader suddenly shouted a salute in a loud voice, and it wasn’t just him — the frenzied cultists all halted their assault and began chanting loudly together. Guan Tong couldn’t understand what they cried out, but as the chorus grew, the Mental Stability Anchor totem in the palm of his hand grew hotter and hotter — a sign that the spiritual assault was strengthening. It seemed that besides using followers as substitute deaths, the Cult Leader could make them resonate with him, amplifying his mind-control effects.
This should be ending soon. Guan Tong didn’t want to waste time tangled with scum like this. He reactivated Nano Decomposition and then shrank his Shadow Domain. Cultists inside the Shadow Domain who touched the shadow were silently disintegrated — one, two, dozens, hundreds... Finally the domain shrank down until it encompassed only two patches the size of a few people: one patch contained Scarface, the other contained only the Cult Leader. The Cult Leader had stopped using his ability by then; his pale, bloodless face showed a stiff, terrified expression as he realized he was no match for Guan Tong.
“Shadow, don’t kill the Cult Leader yet!” Adam arrived at that moment. From what I knew of the battle, from how half the cathedral had already disappeared and personnel were down to only Guan Tong, and given that Guan Tong’s forces had split into two white spheres, it was obvious he had won. There was no need to rush. Killing the Cult Leader outright would be straightforward, and information could be pried from his mouth — for example, why King Bruce of Suroma wanted him captured alive.
“He’s not dead yet.” Guan Tong said as he removed the Shadow Domain. The Cult Leader immediately collapsed, blood gushing from his wounds. This time his injuries did not transfer away — for some reason. It couldn’t be because all the cultists were dead; outside the underground parish there must still be some of his followers. Guan Tong guessed one possibility: the Cult Leader’s “substitute death” ability had an effective range; once a follower used as a backup moved beyond that distance, the ability ceased to work. It was also possible the Cult Leader had exhausted his Mind Power. After all, abilities like “substitute death” and “mind control” probably cost a lot of Mind Power; after continuous use, how could he hold out? Especially since both Guan Tong and Adam could sense that this Cult Leader did not carry the aura of having entered the Second Stage of Ascension. In other words, his Mind Power upper limit had not broken past a thousand points.
To be honest, this puzzled Guan Tong somewhat. He had assumed someone capable of controlling so many cultists would have already broken into the Second Stage, but that did not seem to be the case. He didn’t know why. “Huff...” Scarface, who had escaped from the Shadow Domain, panted heavily, his face still pale with lingering fear. He felt it had been wise not to transform and confront Guan Tong directly earlier — otherwise his fate would not have been better than the cultists who had simply “vanished.” He also saw Adam and recognized him, thinking, “So Adam and Shadow are working together, no wonder... though Han Qiu did mention him, guessing Adam hadn’t died but was in Beixing.” He didn’t dare move while Guan Tong said nothing; he remained where he was.
Guan Tong told Adam about the Cult Leader’s ability. Adam was as shocked and furious as he was, equally eager to personally execute the man. Yet he chose to restrain himself for the moment and walked up to the Cult Leader, who was slashed in many places by Shadow Blades, and demanded, “You bastard, are you connected to Bruce? Do you know why he wanted you captured alive?” Scarface showed a strange expression when he heard that question. He wondered how Adam and Shadow knew that Bruce wanted the Cult Leader captured, since Han Qiu was the one who had told him to come and deliver a message. As he thought this, Guan Tong’s voice suddenly sounded right beside him.
“Looking at your expression, it seems you know something too?”
Huh?! Scarface hadn’t expected that although the Shadow had been watching the Cult Leader, he would somehow read the tiniest expression on his face and appear right in front of him so fast. Facing the dark silhouette, his heart was in turmoil; he hesitated on whether to speak, and if so how much to reveal. He had no loyalty to Han Qiu — he had been working with him only for profit — and profit was not worth dying for. In reality, the reason he had survived until now was because he stabbed others in the back when necessary. He had even sold out many of his Three Beasts Army brothers to the Human Consortium, so why would he hesitate with Han Qiu? Besides, he had gotten into this mess precisely because he followed Han Qiu’s words to deliver a message to the Cult Leader; instead he ran into the Shadow and Adam, and if they fought for real his chances were zero.
“I’ll tell you.” Scarface inhaled deeply, “I’ll tell you everything I know. It’s not that I’m afraid to die, it’s that I can’t stand these pieces of trash either!”
Guan Tong knew Scarface was putting on an act of shared hatred, but if any useful information could be obtained, it was worth listening to. After all, on the Cult Leader’s side... he looked over. Despite Ye Dang’s interrogation with field force, the Cult Leader remained silent, not uttering a single word even under torture. Guan Tong remembered the Truth Serum item in his Storage Box and thought maybe it could be used on the Cult Leader later. He turned back to Scarface and asked, “What’s your relationship with the Cult Leader? Why did you come to deliver a message this time?”
“I’ve got nothing to do with him! I’ve always despised that cult leader. He used his ability on me once, and I’ve wanted to kill him ever since!” Scarface blurted.
“Don’t dodge the question, answer mine.” Guan Tong pressed.
“It’s true. I know him, but only because Han Qiu cooperated with him. I came to see the Cult Leader this time because Han Qiu said he was being watched by Bruce and couldn’t leave, so he asked me to deliver the message.” The moment Han Qiu’s name came up, Guan Tong’s brow tightened. He hadn’t expected Han Qiu to be involved, but since his targets were the Cult Leader and Han Qiu, revealing both was actually better.
Guan Tong continued, “What’s your relationship with Han Qiu? What message did he want you to give the Cult Leader?”
“We had no real relationship, just normal cooperation. I took... cough, took some currency from the Human Consortium and ran. Han Qiu contacted me, offered to shelter me so the Human Consortium couldn’t catch me, and in return I’d do him favors. That’s it, nothing more.” Scarface tried to distance himself from Han Qiu’s reputation when he spoke, because he knew from Guan Tong’s tone that Guan Tong recognized Han Qiu and didn’t think well of him.
“This time, after the rule ends, Han Qiu told me Bruce wanted him to hand people over, to give up the Cult Leader. Han Qiu told me that handing over the Cult Leader would reduce his usefulness and Bruce might betray him. He also said he was under surveillance and couldn’t leave New Covenant, couldn’t use the network, and didn’t trust the Ascendant Home for anonymous contact. He claimed the Cult Leader never used mind-power Dao devices to communicate, so Han Qiu told me to go and deliver a face-to-face message.” “The message was to have the Cult Leader hand over ‘a version of himself’ so Han Qiu could answer to Bruce. I don’t know what that means, but that was Han Qiu’s exact wording.”
Hearing Scarface, Guan Tong confirmed that Han Qiu was in New Covenant and had ties to Bruce, but he was also puzzled. “Why would Bruce ask Han Qiu to hand people over? Did Bruce know about their cooperation?” “Of course he did! In the previous Bright Moon rule, the Ascendants who participated in the array action were those controlled by the Cult Leader — otherwise how could they obediently go to their deaths? Han Qiu was the broker between Bruce and the Cult Leader!” Scarface explained.
Guan Tong was shocked and fell silent for a moment. Scarface suddenly remembered that the shadowed “Shadow” in front of him had been one of the victims of the Bright Moon rule’s array action, almost dying there. Fear surged through him; he hurriedly tried to patch things up. “Boss Shadow, the Bright Moon rule events had nothing to do with me. It was Han Qiu, the Cult Leader, and Suroma who teamed up. It wasn’t my doing!”