48. The Last Bewitched Soul

“Son, live on! You are the last hope of the Chu family!”

“Brother, live on…”

“Young master, run! Live on!”

“Live on!”

…

In a dim room, a young man dressed in a filthy Taoist robe sat cross-legged on a straw mat, his expression somber, as if haunted by some painful memory.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and a shaft of light fell upon his chiseled features, forcing him to shield his eyes.

A fellow Taoist disciple stood at the door. “Agni, you can leave now.”

“Is the interrogation over?” The young Taoist named Agni raised his head, a hint of delight breaking through his haggard face.

“Yes. All of you can go now,” the disciple explained. “The entire Daoist Order is unsealed. You’re free to go wherever you want.”

He helped Agni up from the ground, brushing the dust from his shoulder.

“I just can’t figure it out. You’re only an outer disciple working kitchen chores. What madness possessed that heir of the Xu Corporation to target you so specifically?”

These past days, Xu Qing and his investigative team had questioned over a hundred disciples of the Daoist Order, eventually narrowing their suspicions to five, Agni among them.

Xu Qing had locked these disciples in dark, claustrophobic rooms, providing them only the barest sustenance, all to torment their minds.

Fortunately, the Order’s lockdown had now been lifted, and the confinement ended with it.

Resentment was thinly veiled in the disciple’s tone. “That arrogant young master swore the Midnight Headsman was hiding among us, but he was dead wrong!”

“Huh? What exactly happened?” Agni’s confusion was plain.

After stepping outside the room, the disciple gave Agni a general account of the events. After a brief spell of bewilderment, Agni offered a grateful smile.

“Thank you, brother. You’ve brought me far enough,” he said with a bow before parting. “I’m heading down the mountain to buy some groceries.”

The disciple grumbled, “No wonder the food’s been so bland these days. You kitchen lads really know how to cook.”

Bidding his fellow disciple farewell, Agni returned to his room.

As expected, his quarters had been thoroughly searched—so thoroughly that even the mattress had been turned upside down.

With a calm expression, Agni lifted a particular tile in the floor, scraped away the soil beneath, and unearthed an inconspicuous bundle and a battered iron sword.

Relieved to find them untouched, he buried the bundle and sword again, replaced the tile, and left the room.

“Well, if it isn’t Brother Agni!”

As soon as he stepped outside, a fellow disciple greeted him.

“Greetings, brother. I’m heading out for groceries,” Agni replied respectfully with a bow.

His peer eyed him with concern. “You’ve been locked up for days, and you look like a wilted bean sprout. If you’re not up to it, take today to rest.”

“Thank you for your concern, brother. I’m fine,” Agni replied with a smile, then turned to take the mountain path down.

Agni had been with the Daoist Order for five years now, but he remained an outer disciple, always relegated to menial kitchen chores.

According to the elders, his “roots were damaged, meridians shattered—completely unfit for cultivation.”

But no one had ever asked how his body came to be that way. After all, with a name marking him as a foreign refugee, he was lucky to have survived at all.

So Agni chose to remain, doing chores for the Order. Despite being unable to cultivate, his gentle nature and culinary skills won him the goodwill of his peers.

After leaving the Order, Agni walked calmly through the bustling streets, quietly observing his surroundings.

An old half-mechanical man selling boiled beef napped by his cauldron; women chased after children reluctant to return home; fellow disciples in Taoist robes clashed with scholars from the Confucian sect in a standoff that bristled with tension.

Agni drew a deep breath, savoring the hard-won sense of freedom and peace.

Suddenly, something flashed through his mind—a sharp, piercing pain seized his head.

He clutched his forehead, grimacing and bending double in agony.

After some time, the pain ebbed away. When Agni opened his eyes again, confusion clouded his face.

“What is this…”

The world before him was drenched in a blood-red hue, as if covered by a crimson filter—everything was painted in eerie scarlet.

“Brother~!” A child’s voice rang by his ear.

He looked down to see a girl of about ten at his side, dressed in a blue cotton dress, her large, luminous eyes gazing at him with innocent affection.

“Xiao Xian…” Agni’s breath caught; a cold shiver gripped his heart.

“Brother, I want a candied hawthorn~” The girl pointed to a vendor’s stall, her voice sweet and coquettish.

But Agni’s expression darkened, his voice low and cold. “You’re already dead. You can’t have it.”

At his words, the girl’s eyes turned into deep, unfathomable pits, dark blood slowly seeping from their corners.

“Hee hee…” She kept smiling, her laughter pale as death.

“Then, brother, you have to live on… and… avenge me~”

Agni clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened, thrusting a fist forward as he shouted, “I know! I know! Even if you didn’t say it, I’ll make them pay! Those who killed my sister will know no grave!”

As Agni’s cry echoed, the vision before him twisted and shattered, vanishing like a mirage.

He found himself once again in the midst of the bustling street, the crowd moving along unaware and unconcerned by his strange behavior.

After all, in Night Axis City, madmen were hardly a rarity; such scenes had long ceased to surprise anyone.

“It’s happening more and more often…” Agni whispered, taking a deep breath before disappearing into the throng.

…

After selling the ingredients he needed for tonight’s meal, Agni did not return directly to the Daoist Order, but instead walked toward the outskirts.

“There’s still time. I can go take a look.”

Once he was sure no one was around, Agni kicked off the ground, propelling himself forward with astonishing speed.

He sprinted through forests and ruins, moving so fast even his afterimage blurred, faster than any off-road vehicle could hope to match.

But such inhuman velocity came at a cost. As he ran, the muscles in his legs began to tear under the strain, blood spurting from wounds that opened like the splitting of tires.

Yet the wounds healed themselves almost instantly, only to split open again, and again.

At last, he stopped at the edge of a desolate ruin.

Through shattered metal walls and heaps of rubble, one could faintly discern that this had once been a small town.

Agni stepped into the ruins, and once more the world blurred crimson before his eyes.

The ruins around him began to reassemble, as if time itself flowed backward, and the scene transformed into a flourishing town.

Above the town’s main gate, the sign read: “Gusu Town.”

Ghostly figures drifted through the streets, their eyes feverish and strange as they stared at him.

“Live on…”

One shadow whispered.

“I hate them so much…”

“Live on… avenge us!”

“Live on… kill them!”

…

Agni took a deep breath and thrust two fingers into his own eyes.

With a sickening squelch, his bloodshot eyes burst into twin fountains of blood, and the vision shattered.

Soon, the flesh around his eye sockets began to squirm, and his eyes regenerated as if nothing had happened.

All trace of the phantasm vanished.

Agni’s expression remained calm, untouched by the world. He bowed three times to the ruins, then took out his phone and dialed a number.

“It’s been a while, Midnight Headsman~”

On the other end of the line, a young man’s voice answered, light and careless.