Lu Li walked on the road leading to the Judiciary Cathedral.
Behind the shop windows, on the balconies, inside the windows, outside on the streets, and citizens who had rushed over from other places watched quietly as Lu Li passed by.
Among them were shivering middle-aged people in thin clothes, scoundrels wrapped in filthy blood-stained coats, empty-handed soldiers, and the Judiciary Guard standing quietly.
"Catch that fallen Exorcist!"
A voice erged from the crowd, causing a stir, but even the Knights of the Guard did nothing.
Everything experienced in the dream was clear in everyone’s mory, the citizens no longer wanted to be labeled as the "Heretics" they once reviled, and the Knights and soldiers didn’t want to beco accomplices of the conspirators again—
That was not the ending the people of the Unfrozen Harbor wanted.
Soon, a silhouette with a giant backpack appeared beside the lonely advancing Lu Li.
rchant Anthony had left the dungeon.
"Mr. Luli!"
Before long, Puxiu and Ophelia also squeezed out from the crowd that made way, wagging their tails at Lu Li’s feet.
"The dungeon released us! Was the dream your doing?"
"I saw... the God of the Deep Sea, did you... make peace?"
"Yes."
As Puxiu waved towards the shadow over the bay, Mattheus and his aides erged from the crowd.
Their appearance signified the loss of control over Vena Ice-Free Port by the Judiciary, confird by his subsequent words.
"Due to the Judiciary’s terrifying, twisted, and treacherous actions in that dream, nurous councilors, nobles, knights, and priests have severed ties. Those aware of the conspiracy have been apprehended, leaving only the instigator, Bishop Ussa, who is in the Judiciary Cathedral.
"I’m on my way there," Lu Li said.
The Judiciary Cathedral.
Once also called the Cathedral of Light.
The spire towered high into the clouds, with the sun symbol embedded where a statue should stand.
The Knights and soldiers who had defected—or rather returned—had already surrounded the place,
The reverence people once held for this place was as complex as their disdain now.
Frankly speaking, the collapse of the Judiciary was not because of Lu Li—it was strangled by its own elaborate trap "The Glory Belonging to Humanity," it betrayed itself. Then it abruptly ended as the false dream shattered.
Even without Lu Li, what happened in the dream would have beco reality.
The crowd, gray and drab, parted to form a path to the Cathedral guarded by the Knights.
An elderly Bishop, clad in golden-threaded religious garnts, stood before the Cathedral’s door, bowing to Lu Li as he stepped out of the crowd: "Honorable Exorcist, Forr Bishop Ussa awaits you in the hall."
Stepping onto the cobblestone road, Lu Li and the others walked into the empty hall of the Cathedral.
Dim light peered through the stained-glass windows, solemn and holy.
They walked down the aisle between the pews, their footsteps echoing in the hall.
Bishop Ussa stood behind the pulpit, the jeweled crown highlighting the old man’s dignity, his deep blue eyes still wise, murmurs of admiration reverberated in the Cathedral.
"Incredible power, it’s almost not sothing a human could possess..."
"The God of the Deep Sea helped a lot," Lu Li replied.
"Ussa, your conspiracy to destroy Vena Ice-Free Port has ended," Mayor Matteus exclaid at this mont, his solemn shout echoed by the church, like a warrior claiming a crusade against a Demon Lord.
"It wasn’t who did it," Bishop Ussa shook his head slowly.
"I saw everything in the dream," Lu Li said calmly.
The Pope he imprisoned, the Judiciary under his control, nobody, no weirdness controlled him.
"I didn’t want to destroy Vena Ice-Free Port, nor did I want to kill people. Faith was sothing we had to do... Now we have failed. Victory belongs to one more powerful than us..."
Bishop Ussa’s eyes seed to reveal a relieved or similar emotion.
"Lead humanity forward..."
Mayor Matteus, who wanted to question, was stunned.
"Why," Lu Li asked.
"Are you asking why I did this?" Bishop Ussa’s deep blue eyes turned dark and dull: "Because it’s the best of tis... and the worst of tis."
Lu Li fell into silence, Ophelia also pondered, and an impatiently curious Puxiu asked, "What do you an by the best?"
"It’s simple, if what we’ve experienced, the darkest, the most tragic, the most painful despair of this mont in the Weird Tis..."
"Was just a prelude?"
Ophelia erged from her thoughts, Lu Li remained quiet.
"That’s impossible!"
Mayor Matteus’s shock echoed in the cathedral, like a stern admonishnt.
Bishop Ussa ignored Matteus’s insistence, whispering beyond the echoed shouting: "There’s no ti left..."
"Evidence," Lu Li asked.
"Once one of the greatest adventurers, Captain Lifelien Xilia Wilt."
"The female adventurer of the Arlen Kingdom? She disappeared decades ago..." Mayor Matteus said, frowning.
"She returned a few years ago, hiding here in Vena Ice-Free Port."
"And what does she have to do with this?"
"Captain Lifelien Xilia Wilt returned from the north... from the other side of the Spine of the World Mountains."
Mayor Matteus fell silent. That side is the Edge of the World, a dangerous and violent sea never dared by humankind, unexpected that an adventurer entered and returned alive...
"Where is she?"
"Can we find her?"
Mayor Matteus and Lu Li asked simultaneously.
"Of course... she’s at 24 Lentschin Street, I’m sure she’s ready for your arrival."
"Why did you never tell us."
"It’s a secret,"
Bishop Ussa replied.
"A secret is a secret because it isn’t known by too many."
Lu Li and the others left the Cathedral, Mayor Matteus ordered soldiers to guard the place, and went with Lu Li to 24 Lentschin Street.
They t Captain Lifelien Xilia Wilt. Imaginings of the portrait preserved in the museum, but without that sharpness, seeming more like a crazy witch.
As they arrived, she clung to the door fra, hoarse and growling, not even letting them enter the door.
"Look, you still have water to drink, food to eat, light to illuminate the path!" Her eyes moving dreadfully like a mottled tree trunk.
"But the end tis are coming... just wait... the winter will destroy humanity’s last pure city, darkness will engulf the land..."
With the witch-like hoarse laughter, they left the doorway, Mayor Matteus gestured for the soldiers to take her to a hospital for treatnt.
That Bishop Ussa would believe the words of an old madwoman perplexed them, then soldiers rushed up to tell them they’d never have an answer: Bishop Ussa had committed suicide in the Cathedral.
Mayor Matteus fell silent, though Bishop Ussa once stood on the opposing side, he found it difficult to feel relieved about it.
Next, more secrets extracted from the lips of Captain Lifelien Xilia Wilt, who made the ominous prophecy, beca the task for this Mayor.
No matter what.
From now on, human glory truly returns to Vena Ice-Free Port.
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