Chapter 22: The Revolution Begins
"Xiaochen──────!!!"
When Ling Shuang's roar sounded, the hearts of several people in various places in the arena also tightened as they saw the large amount of glaring blood on the ring.
One of them was Glen She. When he saw the long blade pierce her chest, he instinctively stood up from his chair, his body surging with a dark and icy fighting spirit that almost made those around him breathless. However, he didn't rush to the ring immediately because he noticed a subtle pause before Jialina's final blow.
There were several other people who discovered this detail - Xiaxue, Yagard, and Redis, who were sitting in the VIP seats.
In the middle of the game, when he arrived at the ring and saw Beichen, Yagard couldn't help but rush out. Xiaxue had to persuade him. Now seeing this scene, the furious knight almost wanted to call for the Red Moon Armor again, but Xiaxue stopped him again.
"Your miko told me personally not to act rashly. Just bear with it! Didn't you find that last attack strange?!"
"The hostages have nothing to do with me—I only know Miss Beichen!!"
"Agad, do you want to let Xiang Ying's tragedy happen again? Just because she forgives you once doesn't mean she'll tolerate you every time. If her companions get into trouble because of your misbehavior, you'll have to consider the consequences yourself."
Redis gave cold advice while holding a cigarette in his mouth, but his eyes never left the blood-soaked figure on the ring for even a second.
Yagad was silent, but his teeth were chattering, and he stared at Beichen in the distance with a painful expression. After a long time, he finally managed to say something through his teeth:
"...The plan remains unchanged. Let's proceed as planned."
"Are you okay?"
Karina drew out her long sword, then took a step forward to catch Beichen before she landed on the ground. She carefully held her in her arms and squatted down, then crushed several recovery spirit crystals in a row.
Ling Shuang wanted to go forward in the distance, but was worried that she would be exposed in the open arena and vulnerable to sniping from all directions. After being persuaded by several guards nearby, she finally did not run onto the arena. She just stood in the shadow of the lounge door, anxiously looking at Beichen's back and stamping her feet.
"It's okay, thank you."
Beichen smiled weakly in Jialina's arms.
Karina's stab was extremely skillful. On the surface, the blood splattered everywhere, which was extremely tragic, but in fact, the knife avoided the vital points and would not kill anyone. Just at the last moment, she saw Beichen's mouth move, and then her voice came directly in her mind - a bit similar to the voice she heard when Yagard turned into the Red Moon Knight.
Kill me and save me.
Looking at Beichen's determined eyes opposite her, Karina immediately knew that when she said "kill me", she didn't really mean to kill me, but she wanted to do something with it - such as a self-torture trick or something.
In a very short time, Karina made a balance and gave Beichen a blow that looked very serious.
Beichen achieved his goal.
Although the pain from the chest injury almost sent her into shock, her mood became much brighter.
──Now, even Atlas, the last one who lost contact, should have received his message.
She clearly remembered the scene when Atlas came to rescue her when they were attacked by the Disaster King near the ancient ruins. Later, Atlas said that if Beichen's vitality dropped to a dangerous level, he would notice it and rush to her as quickly as possible. A minute had passed since she was seriously injured, and Atlas had not appeared. He was probably far away from here, but no matter what, he should be able to sense her current location.
The wound healed quickly under the effect of the recovery spirit crystal. Ten minutes later, Karina helped Beichen stand up, and the referee also walked to their side.
"I give up."
Beichen pulled the corner of his mouth weakly, but there was no smile of joy of victory on Jialina's face beside him - she probably felt that her victory was not fair enough. In her eyes, Beichen's weak leg looked a bit like he was deliberately letting the game go.
"The winner is Carina Nefarnet!!"
As soon as the referee shouted loudly, the entire stadium exploded with all kinds of boiling voices, including cheers, applause, cheers, and a small number of boos - and Xiaxue, who was in the VIP seat, had an extremely ugly face - he didn't understand Beichen's physical condition, and he also thought that the weak leg was a sign of letting the game go.
Would you rather lose with this lame method than leave me to someone else?
Even though he knew that Beichen might have had some subtle plans for taking this step, Xiaxue still stared at her pale face and gritted his teeth in anger - fortunately, the contract rights he gave were only for one month, and fortunately, he also knew Karina. She was a warrior with a true chivalrous temperament, honest, brave, simple, resolute, able to endure hardships, and always put others before herself. If Beichen was not there, she would be a good candidate for the contract.
The arena maintained its noisy and enthusiastic atmosphere. After learning the result of the game, Ling Shuang immediately made a secret signal, and at the same time, she and the guards beside her crushed the spirit crystals they had been holding in their hands - and then disappeared in less than a second.
Lingjing "returns home".
This is a teleportation spirit crystal. Like the resonance spirit crystal, it comes in a set of two. One is placed in the holder's hand, and the other is placed at another location as a coordinate. As long as the spirit crystal is crushed, the holder of the spirit crystal will be instantly transferred to the location of the coordinate spirit crystal.
This kind of spirit crystal is extremely valuable and rare, but with Su Mo's funding, Ling Shuang is wealthy enough to use them in large quantities in such places.
The next second after Ling Shuang was transferred, Yizhi also transformed back into human form. He no longer cared about the award ceremony and crushed the spirit crystal while riding Beichen. As the light of the transfer lit up, Beichen suddenly shouted in the direction of Glenshe:
"Hairball!"
Then, he and Yizhi disappeared from the ring in a flash, leaving behind the stunned Karina and Luo Hou, as well as the referee who had not yet recovered.
The crowd began to talk again - the white shadow disappeared inexplicably, and before leaving, it shouted a completely meaningless "hairball" - what does it mean? Why does it feel like there are more and more mysteries about her?
Glenn She frowned solemnly: Why is she bringing up Maoqiu at this time? It's just an ordinary Shiba Inu.
—Wait, a Shiba Inu?!
Glennshe's expression brightened. He bent down, picked up the little Shiba Inu that was dozing off with its mouth on his trouser leg, threw it over his shoulder, and strode out of the audience.
On the other side, the people in the VIP seats looked even uglier after seeing Beichen and his companions disappear in an instant.
"That's quite thoughtful." Xiaxue raised an eyebrow. "But they'll appear again eventually. It won't be so easy to let them get away next time."
"Beichen's estimate is quite accurate. Let's continue preparing for our business. Congratulations on having a new contractor, His Highness Xiaxue."
Redis threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped it out. He had no interest in the upcoming award ceremony. He left after making a mockery of Xiaxue.
Yagard also left with a gloomy face and without saying a word, while Xiaxue sighed and walked towards the ring - he couldn't let the winner, Karina, stand there forever.
Thus, in this somewhat strange atmosphere, the Latia World Class Martial Arts Tournament came to an end.
Then, the next day, the Kingdom of Latia issued a new decree restricting combat weapons, which instantly wiped out the last bit of the festive atmosphere brought by the fighting feast.
Due to two consecutive moonquake nights, many weapons attacked humans under the instigation of the golden giant beast, which caused the public's dissatisfaction with the weapons to secretly rise to a high level. During this period, under the extravagant and lively surface of the martial arts competition, the relationship between humans and weapons had already become rigid to the point of undercurrent.
However, in order to ensure the successful completion of the martial arts competition, the kingdom has been holding back and postponed the promulgation of the decree until after the martial arts competition is over.
With this decree, the status of weapons in this country suddenly became even lower.
The decree requires that in order to restrain and suppress the destructive power of weapons within a certain range when riots occur on the night of the moonquake, the spiritual warriors should always maintain their weapons in a semi-starved state. After each moonquake night, there will be an assessment of the weapons. Only weapons that were not incited to madness the previous time will be eligible to fill their stomachs and accumulate star spirit power for advancement.
Once the decree was issued, humans breathed a sigh of relief, while the warriors grew dissatisfied—but their protests received no response, because they had indeed done something beyond their control on the night of the moonquake.
A closer look revealed that other countries had enacted similar laws before and after this, but regardless of whether they were strict or lenient, warriors around the world began to complain about them. After all, it wasn't their fault that they went crazy during the moonquake, so there was no reason for them to bear all the blame and restrictions.
After Latia's decree was issued, incidents of weapons falling into darkness suddenly increased several times over. The Royal Knights personally intervened, rounding up and suppressing several fallen weapons. They also further reduced the social status of fallen weapons in various relevant regulations, hoping to curb the weapons' reckless mentality.
If this treatment only caused the warriors to accumulate resentment, then another rumor had plunged the warriors into a hellish situation.
Starting from the Jurodana Islands, it spread like an epidemic, spreading terror throughout the entire northern continent.
The epidemic also had a name: "war resentment syndrome."
The meaning is simple: an incurable disease contracted by the resentment of a weapon. Those infected by the virus begin to gradually harden their skin from the inside out, gradually taking on a metallic sheen. Their iron-like internal organs can no longer digest food. Finally, water and blood gradually drain from the body. The entire infective phase lasts approximately ten days. The patient endures this slow torment, living in fear, hunger, and pain until they become a corpse, half-human, half-ghost, and die.
In just over ten days, the war resentment spread to the Jiro Empire located in the north of Latia.
Although there have been no cases of war sickness in Latia, panic has already hung over Latia like a dark cloud. At the same time, people vent their fear and hatred of the epidemic on the source of the disease - the war weapons.
Abuse has become a pleasing spectacle, verbal abuse is justified, killing is a just punishment, and even torturing weapons in various ways on the street has become a morbid and deformed trend. The ugliness and cowardice of human nature are fully exposed at this moment.
However, those who sympathized with Zhanqi and stood up to speak for him were surrounded by their own compatriots, scolded, questioned, and even beaten and ridiculed. They were labeled with high-sounding hats and even tied up and paraded through the streets in unofficial manner.
Once the shiny protective film of the martial arts tournament was removed, and once the Xiaxue who had come down from the pedestal with the contractor disappeared, the relationship between humans and weapons of war collapsed at a rapid speed.
To make matters worse, the number of golden behemoths is increasing. Even on nights other than the moonquake night, they will appear near the town and indiscriminately attack any living creature, whether it is a human or a weapon. Not only do they have to face the threat from each other, but they also have to put all their efforts into dealing with those difficult behemoths.
Survival is becoming increasingly difficult.
And at this moment, a statement that had appeared all over the world before but was treated as a joke began to resurface.
──The Red Moon Priestess is about to appear.
If this could be considered an eye-catching gimmick before, now if this statement is put forward, at least 80% of people will choose to believe it.
So, where is the Red Moon Priestess?
Legend has it that before she, known as the Mother of Disaster, carries out her activities of destroying the world, she must select a group of "chosen people" to bring into the new era.
With great panic and a subtle hope, people from all over the world began to organize themselves to search for the Red Moon Priestess.
It was at this time that a new religious group emerged in Grubersia, the capital of Latia, which was officially recognized by the country and even paid tribute.
──The Holy Church of Selland.
What is Celand? -- All the inhabitants of Senagard know it; it is the name of the Red Moon.
At that time, a large number of people - both humans and weapons - flocked to the Kingdom of Latia. Whether they were holding the hope of being "chosen", or had the ambition to kill the priestess and bring back world peace, or just wanted to see the appearance of the priestess who brought destruction with their own eyes, in short, Latia was suddenly flooded with countless foreign populations.
The checkpoints on all sides were quickly closed, but some people still sneaked in using various methods, and the national military was also a little troubled. Because of the rigid relationship with the weapons, the army could not exert its full strength, and therefore could not always achieve the goals assigned by the superiors, and incidents occurred one after another.
Under such circumstances, the capital was filled with all kinds of foreign populations. Later, even the military was unable to control them and had to carry out standardization and unblocking work, at least to prevent the crime rate from getting any higher.
The Holy Church of Selland soon issued another external announcement.
──On the night of the next Blade Crying Night, the Red Moon Priestess will appear before the world, demonstrating her absolute strength as the spokesperson of the Red Moon, and announcing to the world the disaster she will bring this time──and the person she is about to "choose".
“Selected”! It really is “selected”!
Oh right, disasters don't matter. As long as you're chosen by the shrine maiden, then even the most horrific things won't happen to you, right?!
In an instant, the number of members of the Holy Church of Selland increased exponentially, and most ordinary people who had no clear will or opinions in their hearts became believers of the Holy Church as if to give it a last resort.
──In the face of this irresistible disaster and panic, the fear and hatred people had for the Red Moon Priestess were quietly transformed by the Holy Church of Selland into a kind of worship derived from the desire for survival.
"Beautiful... Really beautiful... You don't know how beautiful you are now, Xiaochen."
Ling Shuang walked around Beichen, praising him with a look of amazement in her eyes.
The next day was the night of Blade Crying. Beichen wore a precious, carefully tailored red and black dress. Lingshuang was preparing for the decisive action the next day.
Beichen didn't answer, but just laughed sarcastically and pulled the hem of the skirt with intricate lace.
The self in the mirror was deliberately made up with slightly aggressive and seductive makeup - although she originally had a gentle appearance, now with this outfit, she really looked a bit like a female devil who came to destroy the world.
"Xiao Chen."
Ling Shuang hugged her from behind with a gentle voice.
"After tomorrow, the world will be completely different from what it was before."
His eyes were filled with a cold and excited smile. He stretched out his fingers to play with the ribbon around Beichen's neck, looking at her and himself in the mirror.
"You're definitely going to blame me for taking advantage of your identity, but you've also seen how humans, for reasons that shouldn't be attributed to the War Machines, have utterly wiped out the War Machines. Don't you like the War Machines as a race? So you should support us in winning this world."
“…”
Beichen didn't answer, but just let him hold her.
"When the time comes, you'll love the new world I create. Don't worry, if you really can't bear it, I can also choose some humans to stay with you."
“…”
Ling Shuang hugged her and showed an illusory smile, but Beichen still did not answer, but lowered his eyes to cover up the biting coldness in his eyes.
Yes, we're finally ready. You and I.
Tomorrow - let's put an end to this, Lingshuang.
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