His movements were swift and efficient; he didn't even need to use his special abilities to kill these kinds of people. The weapon struck the target precisely enough to kill. With a twist of his wrist, the axe blade easily sliced through the skull and brain tissue, and blood spurted out in an arc, landing on the grass and Emma's face.
Starting from his head, Bamke cleaved the man's entire body diagonally in two. The two halves of the body slowly fell backward. Joey rushed over, grabbed his leg in a panic, and pushed him back to prevent him from falling on her.
His eyes were still open when he fell to the ground, his mangled body twitching uncontrollably, the rotten flesh still hard.
Emma rolled off the rock and sat on the grass, surrounded by white daisies splattered with blood, trembling in the wind.
When Bamke first told him about Beelzebub in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he thought Beelzebub's castle must be as beautiful as a fairy tale wonderland.
Now, she sat on the ground, clutching her clothes tightly, staring at the unrecognizable corpse. Joey paused for a moment, then took off his coat and handed it to her.
She glanced at him blankly, took the shawl and draped it over herself, then grabbed the rock and tried to stand up.
Joey instinctively reached out to pull her back, but Emma abruptly pulled her arm away.
He stood there uncertainly, not knowing what to say or what to do next. She didn't say a word, avoided his confused gaze, hurriedly put on her coat, and turned to leave.
Joey took two more steps toward her, then stopped. She turned around, backlit, and stared at him for a while before pulling her coat tighter and walking over.
"I'm sorry." Emma took a breath, her voice still trembling with tears. "I didn't mean to make things so bad, so rude. It's just... thank you, but that's it. We won't see each other again."
Behind him, Bamke suddenly seemed to take an interest in the corpses in the bushes, and retreated to a distance of ten meters, pretending not to have heard the suffocating conversation.
Joey instinctively clenched his fists and put them behind his back, thinking that this might make him seem more sincere. He said, "I didn't mean to touch you, I just wanted to help you up..."
“No, no, I’m very grateful to you.” She shook her head and tried to give him a not-too-bad smile. “You saved me. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I’m glad you killed him. But… this city is just a play, and we all know what Beelzebub and his men really want to see.”
She paused, looked at his blank expression, took a breath, and decided to continue: "I'm pretty sure it wasn't a coincidence that I ran into that guy here."
Joey stared at her without saying a word, and it felt like the air around them had frozen.
"He contacted me because I was in the closest contact with you, or rather, because that gentleman is a so-called operative."
He flinched; those words pierced him like a sword. He stood there stunned in the sunlight, his body ice-cold, unable to even think of explaining anything. There was nothing he could do; that's how helpless a normal person feels when they suffer a severe psychological shock. He stood in the garden like a mentally challenged person, as if every breath felt like swallowing a razor blade.
“Outsiders…outsiders are always written into the script, I should have known that…” Emma continued, “Those powerful people won’t let any new toy go to waste. There’s no such thing as liberation or hope here. Those created gods will notice anything that can pique their interest, and then…”
“I think you must have done something amazing, so they want to see more dramatic scenes. The audience loves your heroic image of saving others, but the pain is only for us… I’m sorry, I really… can’t go on.”
It took Joey a lot of effort to process what he was saying; he was trying to say something, he had to say something.
But in the end, the child only managed to utter the most useless sentence.
"I'm sorry, I had no idea it would turn out like this..."
Upon hearing this, she shook her head vigorously, looking at him with tears streaming down her face. For a few moments, she seemed to want to reach out and touch him, but then she pulled back, only tightly twisting her fingers together.
After a while, she finally looked away and turned to walk away.
Emma walked with great difficulty, and her wounds couldn't be treated. Joey followed for a few steps before stopping. He knew that when someone could leave so forcefully, they really just wanted to find a place to be alone.
Bamke sighed. "Damn those rich and powerful people, this is a mess." The child was pale and staring blankly at the corpse. The rapist had indeed died a horrible death, the blood staining large patches of grass red, but it was all in vain now.
Joey lowered his head and said nothing. He knew Emma wouldn't look for him again. Their drinking pact was broken without a word. When she left, she seemed to want to get as far away from everyone as possible. He was all too familiar with this attitude; everyone who was about to destroy themselves was so resolute.
They had originally planned to escape to a place outside the new city, but Joey had completely lost interest, and Bamke didn't ask for anything, so they continued walking outwards.
On the way, they came across a horribly mutilated corpse—thankfully it wasn't Emma. Joey was startled. In fact, they both knew very well that if too many horrific corpses appeared in a place, it meant that the danger had not disappeared, but had only temporarily hidden itself.
“That kind of thing happens quite often.” He suddenly spoke up after the silence: “In that alley next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, my sister… well, she was beaten up badly that time too, but when we found her, she kept saying it was okay, that she could take it, and told me not to go looking for trouble with those bastards, because it would be useless.”
He laughed, a grotesque and twisted laugh, like someone who had just been beaten up: "She's definitely in trouble. Nobody thinks it's nothing, but in Jerusalem, when these things happen, you just have to swallow your pride."
Bamke sat down next to him, thought for a few seconds, then took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and handed it to him.
“Everything here has nothing to do with ordinary people…Are we fictional beings? Existing in a world that can't be observed at all? Actually, when I was a child, I thought life in the castle would be wonderful, with no one going hungry, residents helping each other, and no one having to worry about anything,” Joey said slowly.
“Look…all the wealth of Jerusalem was born here, isn’t it? If some people can’t have anything, then there must be another group of people in this world who are happy. But look at it now, it seems that despair and suffering are the same everywhere.”
Bamke patted him on the shoulder, about to say something, when Joey's head just fell straight down.
"That's well said, reward him with a first-time separation meal."
A voice sounded from behind them.
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