Chapter 39: Day of Judgment |
When Alvaro returned to the secret lava-cave stronghold, Adrian’s transformation had already entered its final stage.
His new body, curled up in the posture of an infant, was wrapped inside a huge cocoon of light woven from the spider silk spun by Beren, floating above the cave.
Adrian’s soul seemed to have entered that hazy chaos once again. There was no alternation of day and night, no conscious awareness, only an endless, boundless void in which he waited for rebirth.
Standing at the edge of the magic formation, Elder Irlton looked at the spider silk strands that were gradually losing their luster from the exhaustion of magic power, and rubbed his chest somewhat painfully.
He truly had not expected that among Kyle’s subordinates, there would actually be a Bone-Binding Spider, such a precious dark creature, and that it had even been raised so ‘plump and healthy.’
He had lived for more than two thousand years, yet he had never been willing to use so much top-grade spider silk as ritual material in one go. At most, he would use a little at important junctures. But now, so much had been used all at once.
“That boy Kyle really is generous to his subordinates…”
Isos, Montoya, one black shadow and one red shadow both ‘lifted their heads’ proudly.
Of course!
Beren was in even better spirits. As it plucked the web, the terrifying bone-music it played also gained a trace of delight, making it sound even stranger.
Seeing Alvaro return, Irlton asked, “On Coral Thorn City’s side, is there anything that needs me to handle for Kyle?”
Alvaro thought for a moment, then replied, “There are no major problems for now. Lord Kyle has already completely intimidated that group. At present, aside from a few minor issues with the expulsion of the Shadow Guild, everything else is proceeding in an orderly manner. We can handle the rest ourselves.”
“The only thing that should require your personal appearance, my lord, is the large auction in October.”
Irlton raised his brows. He had thought there would be many matters, but in the end there was only the auction?
“Still have to wait another three months…”
“Should a dormancy site be prepared for you?”
“Prepare it.”
Irlton was in no mood to wait that long, and he was not particularly interested in the current chaotic Coral Thorn City either. After his dormancy ended and Coral Thorn City was completely stable, it would be the same if he went to stroll around then.
“Yes, my lord.”
*
The resolution Gann Cole had announced in the rainstorm quickly turned into action.
To avoid complications from delay and to give these people no time to react, the major leaders all personally took the field to arrest and escort certain uncontrollable individuals.
The most troublesome were the Deep Sea Union, scattered across the sea, and the Shadow Guild, which excelled at hiding. Even though the group moved quickly with several of them taking action, many still escaped.
Now they could only hold positions in several parts of Coral Thorn City, ensuring that those missed desperadoes would not, in utter desperation, destroy the city and massacre civilians.
The rest was left to their subordinates to handle, while also using the opportunity to temper the troops.
The next morning, which was now.
In the plaza at the central tower of Coral Thorn City, a judgment platform had already been erected. Merchant groups of all races, adventurers, and common people had gathered to watch.
Representatives from the Deep Sea Union, the involved noble families, and all those from the Shadow Guild connected to black-market industries were all escorted up one by one to publicly judge every one of their crimes.
“Th-This! This is actually real?!”
“They actually had a day like this too!”
“No way… they’re really putting these big shots on trial? I’m not dreaming, am I?”
Most of these common people were refugees who had fled famine from the Empire’s borderlands, bankrupt small peddlers, farmers who had lost their land, and craftsmen who wanted only to earn a bite to eat.
In this ‘city of gold rush,’ although it was full of opportunity, it was equally full of oppression and exploitation.
Although this place had temporarily given them a place to stay, once every last bit of value had been squeezed out of them, they would be cast aside without mercy.
In the face of oppression from those above and from the gangs, they had long since developed the habit of suffering it meekly.
Those vagrants who starved to death on the streets every day were the final destination awaiting this group.
And now, these people who had once stood so high above them were being judged before their eyes, to the point that they simply could not believe what they were seeing.
“Tch!”
A mocking snort thick with ridicule rang out. It came from a lean man with a sharp face, dressed in ordinary adventurer’s leather armor.
With his arms folded, his eyes were full of the coldness and disdain of someone who thought he had seen through the ways of the world.
“They’re just throwing out a few scapegoats to fool people. I’ve seen this kind of trick plenty of times!”
A burly adventurer with a full beard standing beside him looked him up and down when he heard that, then said in a deep, booming voice:
“Brother, you haven’t been in Coral Thorn City for long, have you?”
“So what if I haven’t?” The lean man raised one eyebrow, his tone unfriendly.
“Then do you know that a whole bunch of those people are gang bosses from Coral Thorn City?”
The lean man was choked into silence for a moment. He looked more carefully at those being detained, then frowned slightly and said:
“How can you be sure these people weren’t deliberately disguised or switched out by some other method? These people have obviously had their mobility sealed away. They can’t even speak. They can only let themselves be judged.”
“No, brother, are you really this good at arguing? Didn’t you see the merchant groups of all races?”
“And what does that prove? There are plenty of filthy deals among the big shots.”
“…” The big man suddenly found himself at a loss for words.
“It can’t be fake. Our captain participated in yesterday’s suppression operation against the major gangs!” another adventurer cut in, a female half-beast with cat ears and vertical pupils.
“I didn’t see the guild release any related miss—”
Seeing that the lean man was about to argue again, the half-beast adventurer added:
“If you don’t believe it, you can go to the Adventurers’ Guild hall and look at the quest settlements. These were all tasks directly assigned by the guild, so of course you wouldn’t have seen them. And only those at Master rank or above were qualified to accept them.”
The lean man said nothing more. He was only Formal rank, a tiny shrimp who could not even glimpse the threshold of Elite.
But he still refused to believe it. After traveling far and wide for more than ten years, he had never seen noble lords put themselves on trial!
According to Kyle’s original plan, although they would not push out unrelated ‘scapegoats,’ it definitely would not have been all principal offenders either. More or less, there would still have been some peripheral members forced to bear responsibilities that were not theirs.
But Kyle had killed Robert, the head of the Shadow Guild, and had even pointed out Coral Thorn City’s future direction of development.
That meant the leaders of these forces had to carefully reconsider these issues. Was there really still any need to protect that portion of their members?
They had already clearly realized that Kyle was absolutely not someone they could afford to provoke.
Even the family behind him might be some kind of towering behemoth.
Originally, they had worried that Coral Thorn City might be targeted by other powerful experts, but now they no longer needed to worry about that.
Ah! For self-made first-generation founders like them, who had built their families and forces with their own hands, life really was hard…
After careful consideration, they still decided to push out the main subordinates involved in the slave trade and the plundering of merchant caravans.
Whether Kyle had demanded it or not, they needed to show the proper attitude. Only then would there be hope for going a step further in the future.
So this time, the lean man had truly misjudged the situation. Every one of those being judged was a genuine ‘real thing’! There was not the slightest dilution mixed in.
The representatives of the merchant groups of all races were not idle either.
Prophecy, divination, lie detection, and all kinds of appraisal methods were used several times over. After confirming that the principal offenders put forward by the Deep Sea Union and the involved noble families were actually all the real persons themselves, they too could not help staring in stunned amazement.
“Good grief! Did this bunch take the wrong medicine?” The dwarf elder clenched the relevant intelligence in his hand tightly, his face full of disbelief.
“If the intelligence is correct, then there is only one possibility. The powerful figure behind this matter, the one who made it happen, is not just ordinarily strong. He is so strong that these local forces had no choice but to completely abandon wishful thinking and push their true core members onto the judgment platform.”
The foxfolk elder was likewise carefully reading through every piece of information. This was intelligence compiled jointly by all their races. After comparison and analysis, its accuracy should have been very high.
“It has already been confirmed that the Shadow Guild president of Coral Thorn City has disappeared or died. The vice president escaped last night with the core members through a hidden temporary formation. Aside from a few thieves and assassins hidden extremely deeply, the Shadow Guild can already be considered virtually annihilated.”
The bearfolk elder was more concerned about the Shadow Guild’s situation. His people were preparing to bid on a large tract of land to build an independent trade site and residential district.
The members of the bearfolk were simply too large. There was no place in this city suitable for them to live, so every time they came, they could only pitch tents in the outskirts.
And with the rainstorms these past few days, they had not even had a place to sleep!
Who could possibly be more miserable than them?!