Chapter 1212: Chapter 52: Rebirth
The rough hemp rope connected everyone, leading them to the final destination of this journey and the end of their lives, the gallows.
“Please let go… I won’t bring trouble to the Refuge, really, please believe , I won’t betray humanity…”
The young A Lun pleaded sadly, mixing with the cries around him.
He didn’t know whether to hate the ridiculously cheap food or the polluted at sold by heartless rchants.
The soldiers, as cold as their armor, ignored the people’s pleas and led them to the gallows, where A Lun had once cheered, then beca silent, and finally empathized with the surrounding sadness.
Those past selves stood around the gallows, doing the sa thing as the past selves.
As the cold noose touched his neck, A Lun shivered with goosebumps from the fear of death as if it were cold.
“I am human… I am not polluted…”
The mutter-like plea had beco a subconscious act for A Lun.
“I curse you! It won’t be long before you executioners are hanging up there too!”
But there were also those who beca hysterical from extre fear.
The ten infected beneath the gallows’ nooses quickly stood in place. Just as life was about to conclude, a team of Knights hurried over from afar to save them.
“The Mayor and the Exorcist ask that they be sent over.”
The Knight presented an order signed by Matthias, rescuing the ten who nearly got hanged and brought them, along with nearly a hundred others suffering from low Sanity Value syndro and Polluters, to the Inner Ring.
“Where are we being taken?”
“Maybe to be used as forced labor… I heard so nobles are doing this…”
“We should find a way to escape…”
But those who heard the knights’ voices said, “I heard them ntion the Exorcist.”
“I heard about the Exorcist too… Are we being sent to the Land of Light?!”
“How could such good fortune happen…”
The Knights did not stop their whispers, leading these people, who were drawing unusual gazes, to a park located in the Inner Ring, a cave slightly smaller than the core cave.
The Knights then revealed the reason for bringing them here: Lu Li and his allies had arrived at the Vena Refuge. He pitied these poor souls who would be exiled or killed, offering them a chance to beco Believers of the Twisted Shadow and attain rebirth.
“What if one doesn’t want to beco a Believer?” soone asked.
“Go back to where you ca from,” answered the Knight Captain in charge.
“Can we return to our hos?!”
“Back to the gallows.”
“Will the Exorcist take us back to the Land of Light?” soone else asked.
The once-nearly-hanged individuals awaited expectantly for the Knight’s response.
“Yes.”
Then this was no longer a choice, especially upon learning that becoming a Believer did not erase one’s consciousness.
“My wife is also about to sprout deford limbs, can she co along?” soone wanted to bring their family.
The Knight Captain nodded, motioning to a team mber, “Follow him back to his residence to bring them.”
A Lun had no family, so like most people in the park, he queued up in front of a newly erected shelter.
“Is the Exorcist really here?”
The ragged young person behind him spoke to A Lun.
“I don’t know…”
A Lun shook his head, searching alongside him for that legendary figure of “black hair and black eyes.” And then he really saw it—
As if glory and light focused on him, a clean middle-aged man, a young woman, and a cloaked silhouette surrounded him.
A Lun guessed that was the Mayor, Anna, and the Twisted Shadow.
But soon, the surrounding chatter corrected his mistake: the young woman was the saintly form of the Twisted Shadow, and the cloaked silhouette was Lu Li’s companion, Ophelia.
The twisted figure entered the shelter, and the first resident followed in.
People gazed and waited. Minutes later, a terrifying figure, as if walked out from the deep sea, appeared at the door.
Four tentacle-like soft appendages were stacked and squeezed into his pant legs, exposed skin beca deep and smooth, his nose regressed into flat thin slits on his face, and small whisker-like cilia undulated on his jaw.
This first transford Believer served as a “demonstration,” he walked through the line, conversing with the fear-gripped people.
“Will we beco like this?”
“Yes…”
The wet, clammy Believer responded, his voice gurgling like he spoke with water in his mouth, and when nearby, one could hear a tidal-like sound within his body.
“I feel the power…”
The Believer extended his webbed hand, with a semi-transparent mbrane connecting the knuckles, as clean water invisibly erged, mucky like mud oozing thickly in his palm.
“And… I am still …”
Everything that happened to him felt like a dream, even the terrifying appearance softened.
Others rembered they were allies of the Exorcist, residents of the Land of Light… becoming this form seed not difficult to accept.
Becoming a Believer might not be so bad…
More and more residents entered the mysterious shelter and erged as tentacled Aliens, and occasionally, soone who went in did not co out. A Lun guessed that unlucky soul failed.
Praying he would not fail, A Lun watched the transford people, trying hard to get used to this appearance.
The queue behind him grew longer; when there were only a dozen people before A Lun, more people had co to the park to beco Believers than at the start—
From the Outer Ring, the Inner Ring, residents tornted by low Sanity Value syndro and aberrations received the notice, choosing to believe in this matter because of the Exorcist’s reputation, and ca here.
He even saw the Knights Order driving out so people from the line behind—those were healthy and unpolluted individuals.
They wished to use this as a ans to the Land of Light.
Drawing ever closer to the mysterious transformation shelter, A Lun lifted his coat corner, tucked the cilia growing on his abdon into the tightly tied waistband. However, a passing Knight stopped him.
“Expose it, no aberration will be driven away.”
“Oh oh…”
A Lun obeyed blankly, not only failing to hide the cilia but making it more conspicuous.
But the others around him did the sa, exposing their aberrations, while those with low Sanity Value were anxious, worried they’d be cast out as normal people.
It seed everything in the park had turned upside-down: normal people beca the rejected…
Only a few people remained ahead, A Lun excitedly thought about what he would say to the Exorcist, he saw many talking to Lu Li, and Lu Li responded to them.
Only to his regret, as it was nearly his turn, the Exorcist left the park with the Mayor.
“Next.”
The Knight Captain maintaining order spoke outside the shelter.
“Na.”
“A… A Lun… No last na.”
“Go in.”
Nervously, A Lun entered the shelter, the wooden door closed behind him, welcoming him into the shadows.
As fear struck in the sudden darkness, a gentle presence erged from ahead, like being embraced in the warm arms of an unseen mother…
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