Now That You Behold the Grand Artisan, Why Do You Not Bow?

At the same time, on the third floor, outside the deathly silent Storehouse vault. All the artisans who had rushed over stood trembling on either side, their faces deathly pale. They listened as footsteps gradually drew near, their backs drenched in cold sweat, barely able to keep their footing. In the dead silence, Kanemoto strolled through the wrecked, unrecognizable vault with his hands clasped behind his back. Casually, he crushed an aberrant reaching out from a broken crate, trying to crawl free, reducing it to a puddle of pitch-black liquid that splattered across the wall. The pattering sound struck the artisans' ears as if they were hearing their own blood splashing onto the ground. They trembled uncontrollably. Finally, Kanemoto's gaze fell upon the wall, where a line of sprawling characters had been scrawled in thick ink. It read like a visitor's greeting: [Hearing of your bountiful collection, I was overjoyed and came specifically to visit. Having arrived in high spirits and departed having had my fill, I leave behind a poem as a memento.] The poem read: [A scrawny horse with shaggy hair and swollen hooves; A father thieving from his son is no thief at all. We two have lived the better part of our lives, Yet neither has ever laid eyes upon the other.] BOOM! The instant Kanemoto finished reading, the explosives hidden in the crevices abruptly detonated. Flames billowed and swept outward, shockwaves surging—and then, everything ground to an abrupt halt. Frozen. With merely a casual wave of his hand and a flick of his finger, without needing the aid of any blessing, the Stasis Zone of the Path of the Desolate Ruins manifested right here! The flames blossomed like flowers; shattered iron scattered like leaves. In contrast, that ink inscription strewn across the fissure-riddled wall appeared all the uglier. With hands clasped behind his back, Kanemoto stared at it for a long while before slowly shaking his head. "Cunling." From the stiffly standing, incessantly trembling crowd, someone immediately flung himself forward, scrambling on hands and knees to kneel on the floor. "Teacher, I am here." Without looking back, Kanemoto merely raised a hand and pointed at the wall before him. "Tell me, how is this poem?" Instantly, cold sweat poured off Cunling like a waterfall, soaking his back. Summoning the courage to look up, he stared at it for a long time, reading it over and over, before finally answering with a trembling voice, "It's... absolute dogshit!" "Indeed." Kanemoto nodded. He turned around, glanced at his student, and suddenly asked, "You said that since I've been busy these past two days and the workshop's affairs were complex, you could shoulder everything alone. Now then, how well have you shouldered it?" With death staring him in the face, Cunling ceased his panic. Panic was useless now. From the depths of despair, he prostrated himself on the floor: "A complete and utter mess." "No, at least there are bright spots, aren't there?" Kanemoto gave a soft chuckle and pointed at the wall. "Isn't this trouble something you nurtured? After teaching you for so many years, who would have thought? When it comes to seeking achievement and results, you haven't made the slightest progress, but when it comes to stirring up disaster and breeding chaos, you have quite a gift. I suppose I misjudged you." "Te-Teacher, have mercy! Teacher, Teacher, I..." Tears and snot streamed down Cunling's face as he kowtowed in terror. "This student..." "Rest assured, I won't use my own student as a punching bag. As I see it, this disaster had little to do with you; at most, you were merely incompetent. Once your strengths, weaknesses, and habits were seen through, you were led by the nose step by step just like the rest of the rabble..." Kanemoto looked down at him. "Since you are incompetent, then accept your punishment." At that instant, Cunling was overjoyed, weeping tears of gratitude. He kowtowed even more frantically. "Thank you, Teacher! Thank you, Teacher!" Kanemoto strolled away without looking back, and the crowd hurriedly followed. Only Cunling remained in the empty collection room, kowtowing repeatedly, drenched in tears and snot. Ten minutes later, by Kanemoto's order, the supervisors and department heads of every floor gathered on the fourth floor. In the solemn foyer, everyone stood rigidly in their designated places, exchanging fearful, uneasy glances and whispering in low voices. Among them all, Sun Ci's expression was actually the most relaxed. For one thing, he had only taken up his post yesterday; whatever trouble had occurred had nothing to do with him. Besides, even as a manager, he was only managing a garbage dump... As long as the foul water didn't boil over, who gave a damn about the vermin and workhorses in the trash heap? "It's so tense. What happened? Why does everyone look so..." His assistant stood beside him, head lowered, glancing curiously left and right. Sun Ci waved subtly, signaling him to keep his voice down. "Something big happened. With this kind of fanfare, the Grand Artisan will probably hand down an Absolute Sentence." "What Absolute Sentence?" Ji Jue asked, curious. Sun Ci's face twitched, turning deathly pale, and he dared not say more. "...Just watch." In the dead silence, Ji Jue once again heard footsteps, deep and heavy. Kanemoto slowly walked out from behind the door and took a seat. He did not utter a word. And behind everyone, an iron rack was slowly wheeled to the front. Seeing it, the crowd recoiled in horror, clearing a wide open space. Then, Cunling, bare-chested and flanked by two artisans, walked onto the platform trembling step by step, before being bound to the iron rack. Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle... A bubbling sound that made the scalp tingle rose from the void of darkness beneath the iron rack. Then, faint eyes opened within the gloom, and viscous darkness crept out like tentacles, winding around and clinging to Cunling's body. It hissed and sizzled, sinking deep into the marrow of his bones. Cunling's face went white. He gritted his teeth tightly, enduring it, until he could bear it no longer. He screamed in agony, shrieking at the top of his lungs until his throat tore, yet the hoarse, wretched wails did not cease. Under the entanglement and erosion of the pitch-black tentacles, his right arm rapidly shriveled, shrank, and transformed. Losing the color and texture of skin, it took on an eerie wooden grain. And amidst the squirming of flesh and blood, it withered and cracked. On his back, the flesh bulged into a massive lump that swelled rapidly, drawing upon his soul and blessings, hungrily devouring them until it finally tore through the flesh. From upon his bones grew a wooden doll covered in blood-colored markings. It was lifelike, its face identical to Cunling's, save that one was trembling in horror while the other laughed maniacally and malevolently. It had only grown half its body; the lower half was not yet fully gestated. The sneering puppet wrapped both arms around his neck, looking hungrily at its surroundings. Amidst sharp intakes of breath, Ji Jue held his. Chills ran down his spine! Corruption... Corruption of the Embers lineage! Kanemoto had directly stimulated the Grand Sin's boon within Cunling, upsetting the balance to hatch an aberrant creation forged from Cunling's own soul, blood, and flesh! Yet he deliberately forbade the creation from draining Cunling's soul completely to finish the transformation. Instead, he purposely stalled the progress at the halfway mark, maximizing the agony with precise cruelty. Having lost half his soul and flesh, this incomplete corrupt creation would henceforth be Cunling's greatest mortal peril. If he slacked off for even a single night, he would be completely hollowed out in an irreversible descent into corruption. Yet at the same time... should Cunling emerge victorious in this struggle and completely master the corrupt entity spawned from his own soul, dividing one into two, his craftsmanship and abilities would likely undergo a leap-like metamorphosis, and his connection to the Stagnant Rot would experience a qualitative elevation. But the odds? How high were they? Next to none... The ordeal was too harsh, too cruel. It was practically kicking a man dying of thirst off a cliff, then placing a bottle of water right on the edge. Advance and live; fail to advance and die! Live or die—choose for yourself... Ji Jue reflexively drew his neck back. Just like that, he watched the wailing, convulsing Cunling get dragged away like a dead dog, disappearing from sight. Everyone visibly breathed a sigh of relief. They lowered their heads, becoming even more reverent. Someone took the blame; as long as someone took the fall, all was well! Terrifying—thank heavens it wasn't them... Then, they heard Kanemoto's voice. For the first time since walking in, he spoke. "It couldn't have been easy sneaking in. Setting up a temple in a snail shell—truly demonstrating superior skill. Your methods were quite neat, too. Ruthless and vicious, merciless to others and even harsher to yourself... To think that someone like you didn't cast your lot with the White Stag, but chose the Embers instead." Kanemoto rested his chin on his hand, a flame smoldering within his jade-green eyes. Curiously, he asked, "Still, now that you've rescued your person, why did you stay behind?" In an instant, within the dead silence, everyone held their breath. They stared wide-eyed at one another, not understanding what the Grand Artisan meant. And even if they did, they dared not understand, pretending ignorance like quail pulling in their heads. Trembling in terror. When Kanemoto's gaze swept over, the crowd parted in fright toward both sides. Ji Jue also tried to avert his eyes. Yet he found that the gaze was already glued to him... Following him. His heart instantly sank straight to rock bottom. "..." His scarred face twitched. Lowering his eyes submissively, he seemed to muster his courage. "Grand Artisan Kanemoto? Are you talking to..." "Yes, to you." Kanemoto nodded in reply before he could finish. Thump! Beside Ji Jue, the dumbfounded Sun Ci collapsed backward, completely passing out from sheer terror. "So young, yet your guts are quite large." Kanemoto glanced at his feigned demeanor and appraised him: "Though your applications are a bit scattered, your foundation is very solid—truly impressive. The breath of Embers on you is heavy, yet sparse; you must not have been an artisan for very long, right? A year? No, less than a year..." He paused slightly and sighed softly. "Truly fine material." Ji Jue trembled in terror, falling to the ground and speaking incoherently: "Master, I really..." "I don't have much patience. I suggest you don't waste time," Kanemoto cut him off impatiently. "Your companions don't have much time left either." "..." At that moment, Ji Jue's expression darkened. Ultimately, he let out a helpless sigh. "Old bastards like you are truly shameless... Fishing here the whole time, were you?" "In managing a household and living one's days, prudence comes first. When something feels amiss, one must always be prepared," Kanemoto replied with a mocking smile. "'He who grows old without dying is a thief'—is that not the saying?" To this, Ji Jue nodded in approval. "What a coincidence. We criminals feel the exact same way." In that instant, Kanemoto's eyes narrowed slightly. Far beyond the workshop, trucks that had crashed into ruins were intercepted. Surrounded by various creations and artisans, they were thoroughly searched. Driver's seats, cargo beds, undersides... Crate after crate was pried open—empty. There wasn't even a single bomb! Meanwhile, deep underground in the workshop's Reclamation Department, artisans leading the charge smashed through the doors, subduing every apprentice along the way. Pushing forward, they shattered the office partition and finally caught sight of an empty crate. And on the floor, a gaping hole leading straight into the sewers... Amidst churning, foul water, mercury spiders crawled out one after another. The heavy phlogiston explosives on their backs flashed with alarming red lights, their ticking so shrill. And so urgent. The faces of those in front turned deathly pale in an instant. And then... BOOM!!!!