No one could deny that Alphonse's speech was full of suggestive persuasion, emotional resonance, and demagoguery. It led people to unconsciously doubt their earlier conclusions while eliciting sympathy and even agreement toward him.
All around, voices expressing sympathy and support for Alphonse gradually grew in number.
Ashleia and Ian, standing among them, felt deeply suffocated and aggrieved. They tried hard to say something, but in the heat of the moment, they couldn't sort out clear thoughts or sound logic—and, in truth, they lacked sufficient evidence as well.
He Tangtang felt an unbearable tightness in his chest. That old dog Alphonse was far too shameless, and far too formidable. Incapable of refuting him, he simply cursed upward in fury:
"Do you have no shame at all, you old dog?! Are you insane?! Settle, settle, settle—once we hack you to death, what won't be made clear?!"
Alphonse looked down at him in silence.
This silence only fueled the burgeoning doubts in the crowd, and a hushed stillness spread into the distance as well.
"I am no match for you," Alphonse finally spoke again, his voice low and heavy at first. Then, lifting his gaze toward the distance, he cried out with poignant sorrow, "I am no match for them!"
The crowd watched him in silence.
"However, I will not allow myself to die by their hands." Alphonse raised his hand, tilting his war saber horizontally across the side of his neck. His hand holding the hilt trembled slightly as he said, "I am a first-generation Starlight. The glory bestowed by the history of Azure cannot be trampled like this.
"Witness conspiracy and evil, Azure! After you have beheld the blood of a first-generation Starlight..."
Alphonse shouted, making to draw the long blade across his own throat.
A first-generation Starlight was choosing to take his own life to prove his innocence and reveal the truth to the world!
Cries of shock rang out...
"Except you aren't Alphonse at all," Wen Jifei's voice rang out, clear yet calm.
In this moment, calmness possessed a power of its own.
On the balcony, "Alphonse" froze. He froze for two or three seconds, panic suddenly showing in his eyes. "Wh-what are you saying..."
In the distance, the gasps ceased. "What? What is he talking about?"
"I didn't figure it out myself. I thought you were him too; a moment ago, I even somewhat admired your guts in throwing your life away just to fling mud at us. Almost all of us thought you were him," Wen Jifei continued.
"But Han Qingyu muttered to me just now. He said you aren't Alphonse himself at all. So you must be his son, right? Gilles, was it? You really do look alike—probably had work done intentionally. You look almost identical, but you truly aren't him."
The entire field fell dead silent, waiting for Wen Jifei to produce evidence to prove his words.
"Stop putting on a show. Once Han Qingyu has seen Alphonse, it's impossible for him to remember it wrong."
Without producing a shred of evidence, and keeping his tone completely ordinary, Wen Jifei paused for a beat.
This gave people time to wonder: Did Major The Qing have some special talent for recognizing faces? Or was he deliberately claiming this to muddy the waters?
"None of you probably know just how vindictive Major The Qing is! An enemy's face—even if he's only glanced at it once—is something he will never, ever mistake."
Wen Jifei smiled as he gave his evidence. That was his evidence.
...Was that really true?!
If it was, then an Azure first-generation Starlight was truly despicable beyond words.
An uproar broke out in the distance. Everyone who had ever laid eyes on Alphonse narrowed their eyes, straining to identify him.
When squinting yielded no certainty, they turned their gazes toward Major The Qing's back, waiting for him to step forward and explain.
*Clack!*
Seemingly a little reluctant, the iron armor nevertheless took a step forward as expected. Han Qingyu gave it some thought and said, "Mm. I do hold grudges very deeply."
In truth, he hadn't fully memorized every facial feature of Alphonse down to the finest detail.
Yet intuition was more than enough. The "Alphonse" on the balcony gave him an entirely different feeling from the Alphonse on the stern of that ship. Something was missing from his demeanor, his gaze, and his smirk... and that was enough.
Because of this line from The King, admitting that his extreme vindictiveness was how he recognized Alphonse as a fake... in that instant, even Howard and everyone lost in skeptical contemplation couldn't help but crack a faint smile. Then, they continued to wait.
"So you aren't Alphonse," they heard Major Qing say. "Proving it is simple. Alphonse is a super combat power, rank five on the Dome Leaderboard..."
Before the words fully fell—*Whoosh... shing!*
Blue light flickered, rocketing toward the balcony.
Before onlookers could even blink, the iron armor already stood atop the high platform.
Clad in iron armor, Major The Qing ignored the Alphonse family loyalists on either side. With one hand, he hoisted the bloodied "Alphonse" into the air and slowly turned around.
"Alphonse" was not yet dead; his limbs twitched weakly. His saber had already fallen to the floor. During that split-second exchange, he hadn't even had time to take his own life.
In truth, Gilles possessed top combat power, but his resolve to commit suicide hadn't been that steadfast to begin with. On top of that, Han Qingyu had been far too confident, closed the distance far too fast, and immediately landed a punch square to his face, dazing him before he could react.
Just like that, Major The Qing held "Alphonse" aloft by the collar, standing on the high balcony.
"Are you Gilles?"
"Alphonse" hesitated... and ultimately gave a slow nod.
In truth, Major Qing had no need to ask. Given the situation before them, nothing more needed to be said.
If anyone tried to use Alphonse's advanced age as an excuse, it could not explain how he had forced Shu You back with a single strike in the City of Iniquity. It could not explain the appearance and condition he displayed, nor could it explain the eruption of super-tier aura he had unleashed in the Council hall just last year to vent his fury.
***
"Shameless! Utterly shameless!" Amid the crowd, someone muttered, dazed from sheer shock.
"This is the height of shamelessness, the pinnacle of hypocrisy..."
"And you were actually swayed by him just now," Ashleia sneered mercilessly. "Your stupidity isn't anything new!"
"Y-yes... God, I can no longer fathom what kind of person our first-generation Starlight truly is! He disgusts me to the point of vomiting!"
"Looking at it now, this first-generation Starlight of your Azure really is capable of anything! *Cough, bleh...*" a Self-Preservation Faction prodigy hiding among the crowd mocked.
At this moment, the people of Azure, beyond shame and despair, were enveloped in an overwhelming sense of humiliation.
And then came endless rage.
When their first-generation Starlight proved shameless and hypocritical to this degree, no one believed any longer in his innocence or integrity. Which meant... those rumors about slaughter and cannibalism in the trial grounds... were true!
"Alphonse, come out!" Suddenly, from all directions, more than a hundred people rushed out in disarray.
Weeping and roaring, they held their war sabers high.
They spanned different ages, their combat powers ranging from high to low...
"You killed my brother! Ah, it really was you!"
"When Mother died in the trial grounds, I was only one year old—one year old! And to think I once worshipped you... Ahhh!"
"..."
As these people surged close, they were all held back by the fighters of Stream Vanguard.
Han Qingyu did not speak to them, did not look at them, nor did he execute Gilles on the spot. He tossed the man down from the height, crashing onto the ground, and said, "Strip his gear and tie him up for now."
Then, with a sudden whoosh, the iron armor reversed, flickered through afterimages, and leaped down from above.
With a thud, he landed and steadied himself... War saber held in his right hand, Han Qingyu turned his head, gestured, and said, "Let's go."
His team followed him forward.
Up on the balcony, Alphonse's six loyalists collapsed one after the other.
Chapter 569