Just as heavy metal pollution tends to accumulate at the very end of the food chain.
Through centuries of gradual descent, the people at the bottom had merely lost hope; having grown thoroughly numb, they had become more or less reified. The noble elites at the top, however, had undergone a true and utter aberration, having mutated completely from head to toe right on the spot.
Under the counterattack of Embers, the vast majority exploded on the spot, utterly wiping out the Seven Cities Council. The remaining profiteers were also deformed beyond recognition, no longer even qualifying as human. How could they possibly issue commands or mount a counteroffensive?
One could only say Fernand took the MVP!
That burst of DPS from him had sent away every single bastard who could have posed an obstacle to Ji Jue.
As for the remaining vermin, the rare few who still tried to stamp their feet and fight back didn't even require Ji Jue's intervention. Two Peace Cats simply kicked down their doors and subdued them, leaving them in new clothes waiting to take the stage and swing from the gallows...
Just like that, holding authorization from the Ring of Taiyi in one hand to openly crush rebels and purge evil, and wielding the rules and legal authority of the Seven Cities in the other, he gathered everything cleanly into his grasp.
Without lifting a finger, the Seven Cities changed masters!
After the trials concluded that morning, representatives of each city gathered at the ruins of the Pucheng Council that afternoon. Unanimously declaring that the Seven Cities could not go a single day without a monarch, nor a household without a master, they held an on-site vote right there amidst the rubble. United in mind and purpose, they passed a unanimous resolution, draping the imperial yellow robe over... Minkler, who had just woken up and was still drooling!
The Seven Cities Alliance once again welcomed a new joint sovereign!
Minkler, who had still been a mascot in the Joint Defense Fleet just two months ago, was transformed just like that into an even more badass mascot of the Seven Cities!
"You people have really ruined me!"
Minkler wept openly in Pucheng on the spot. After declining several times, he ultimately had no choice but to accept the post, sighing and groaning endlessly: "If I end up screwing things up, how can I face the Seven Cities? How can I face everyone? How can I face Mr. Ji?!"
Even before this, massive quantities of Riot Cats that had just rolled off assembly lines on Luo Island were already appearing throughout the Seven Cities, taking over public security.
Surveillance cameras flooded into every corner like torrential rain, as the Paradise system's monitoring and management penetrated every aspect.
Emergency aid from Luo Island and Xiangzhou, arriving alongside the first wave of volunteers from the Church of Chongguang, had reached deep into every neighborhood and slum.
After the initial chaos, everything became orderly once more.
And Ji Jue finally had time to deal with the biggest problem in all of the Seven Cities...
—People.
The people who had been contaminated by Stagnant Rot during the fall of the Seven Cities, developing reified aberrations.
Thanks to the brief duration of the descent, the aberration had not penetrated too deeply. The vast majority of the altered people suffered only temporary, mild aberrations. Once removed from the environment, they could more or less recover somewhat. Though left with lingering ailments and disabilities, at least they were alive.
Yet there were still huge numbers who, worn down by sheer exhaustion and agony, had aberrated excessively; cases where people had fused entirely into artificial creations were not uncommon.
For such severe aberration cases, the simplest, most convenient, and most cost-effective method was the universal solution adopted by all factions and nations:
Kill!
The corruption of Stagnant Rot was difficult to purge, and leaving them alive would only breed calamity. Even if they survived, sooner or later they would succumb completely to aberration.
Resolving it early was best for everyone.
Yet having actually seen those weary faces in the mire and heard their weeping and wails, how could Ji Jue—who had once been an accursed person himself—raise a butcher's blade against them?
Forget it. It wasn't as if he lacked the money.
The fortunes accumulated by the seven families of the Seven Cities through centuries of petty scheming, aside from being used to expand the coastal factory zones, were mostly spent on these "worthless" civilians.
Treatment and correction for mild aberrations, surgery and reconstruction for moderate aberrations, along with the continuous consumption of prosthetic limbs and medicine... By rough estimate, dedicating even a third of the wealth to them would be enough to keep them in working order, tightening screws on Director Ji's assembly lines until they died of old age!
As for the hopeless, severe cases, they all vanished without a trace.
No one asked questions. Even the harshest moral arbiter could find nothing to criticize Ji Jue for on that account.
As for why a new factory zone had appeared in the brand-new Ocean Trench Park, that was another story entirely.
"I truly admire your malicious intentions and wicked schemes, sir!"
The workshop spirit praised from the bottom of her heart: "Right when we needed manpower the most, we suddenly gained a batch of useful, durable slaves who demand no return and are fanatically loyal! I'm certain they will gratefully dedicate themselves to you until the end of time!"
"...Don't say it like that, alright, Isis?" Ji Jue sighed helplessly. "They're pitiful enough already."
"Very well, let me put it another way..."
Isis readily obliged, sounding deeply reverent as she remarked, "You truly are an out-and-out good person!"
What a dirty insult!
Ji Jue started to speak, then stopped. "How about we go back to talking about slaves? I feel like I really am rotten to the core, without a shred of conscience... Isis? Isis, are you listening?"
Honestly, I'd rather you just cussed me out!
The workshop spirit had no words, offering only silence.
Couldn't be bothered to entertain him!
At this moment, within the dark Ocean Trench valley, illuminated by rows of floodlights, amidst the ravaged ruins and countless pieces of construction machinery, figures had appeared at some point.
Those laborers, coolies, and lowest-class paupers and beggars who had once been severely aberrated were now completely transformed.
After surgery and reconstruction in Punabantu, their aberrated limbs and organs had been removed and replaced with brand-new mechanical prosthetics and artificial internal organs.
Confronted with the pollution of Stagnant Rot, Ji Jue had chosen to fight fire with fire.
Through Isis, the reified portions were assimilated and replaced, transforming them from victims eroded by the sin of Stagnant Rot into appendages of Ji Jue's own sin...
Now, living in inseparable symbiosis with the Spirits of Creation, working alongside all manner of heavy equipment, they had thrown themselves with fiery enthusiasm into the work of excavation and reconstruction.
"Mr. Ji, preliminary excavation is ready to begin. Based on our current progress, full-scale output is expected by next week..."
A middle-aged man whose half-face and head had been replaced with metal machinery reported cheerfully.
Ji Jue glanced casually at the report and let out a sigh. Several times he hesitated, on the verge of speaking, but in the end, under Isis's cold, mocking gaze, he spoke after all: "I just ran a private line over from the Seven Cities. In the future, if any of you want to get in touch with your families, you can make phone calls. If you want video calls, that might take a while, considering how you look right now... But the technology is still being upgraded. After a few more iterations, you'll be able to change your names and return to normal life just like ordinary people."
"...Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Ji."
The middle-aged man blinked, taken aback, then gave a smile of relief. "Still, everyone thinks it's great here. We all like it—at least it's peaceful. You've already done more than enough for us. None of us know how to thank you."
At that, Ji Jue fell silent. After a long pause, he answered coldly, "You work, I pay. We're square. I don't even know your name, nor do I care to. You'd best not overthink it."
"Just that is enough."
The engineering foreman smiled sincerely. After bowing respectfully to express his gratitude once more, he turned and walked away, plunging back into his work.
From beginning to end, he never stated his name.
Hands behind his back, Ji Jue inspected the site impassively. After a long while, he turned and left.
[Sir...]
"Hm?"
[You actually dislike people, don't you?]
Isis, who had watched the entire scene from start to finish, suddenly asked without warning.
Ji Jue fell silent for a moment and shrugged slightly.
"I just... don't like them that much."
Isis said nothing more.
She had been puzzled for a long time; her confusion had lingered far too long.
Precisely because she understood her creator so intimately, she was all the more bewildered by it.
[Sir, I cannot understand.]
"Normal. Neither do I..."
Ji Jue shook his head. "Even members of the same kind can't understand or care for each other, let alone you. Chances are, I've just been setting a bad example for you."
He was well aware of his own abnormality.
Even more deeply felt than that was his bewilderment regarding other people.
If hatred required credentials, the past version of himself—having lost everything—should have hated this world more rightfully than anyone. Yet no matter what, he could never bring himself to truly loathe it.
At the very moment when he had lost all hope in everything, Warden Lyu had carried him out of the sea of flames, Mother Lu had raised him, and Ye Chun and his teacher had pulled him from the quagmire, enabling him to truly make a difference and change all this.
There were so many people striving with all their might to make this world a better place, if only by a little bit.
Yet why were there still so many people who, fully aware that they were all of the same kind, were incapable of caring for one another—who instead wallowed in ignorance, prejudice, paradoxes, and twisted fallacies, wantonly sowing pain and manufacturing despair?
Even while draped in human clothes, they allowed themselves to degenerate into beasts and vermin, turning into monsters more terrifying than natural disasters and forms more hideous than Great Sins.
And what was worse, they were smug about it, wearing it with pride.
From antiquity to the present, from the Thousand Islands to the Mid-Continent, from the Empire to the Federation, nothing ever seemed to change.
He had seen far too much of it.
"It's too complicated, Isis, and far too horrifying."
Ji Jue's footsteps paused for an instant. He murmured softly, "Sometimes it even makes me feel... afraid."
There was too much to fear.
Fear of screwing up, fear of failing, fear of losing everything he had worked so hard to regain.
Even fear that one day, without even realizing it, he might come to loathe this world as a matter of course...
[You were never duty-bound to do all this, sir.]
Isis reminded him again: [You do not owe this world such an immense obligation.]
"I know. None of this has anything to do with me. I should just look on with cold detachment, not wasting my energy. I could even stand high above, watching the spectacle and laughing my head off, thoroughly amused."
He considered it for a moment and gave a self-mocking smile. "Yet I cannot allow—"
Ji Jue was well aware of his own darkness and selfishness, and he knew he was never destined to become some benevolent saint or fearless warrior.
He didn't expect everyone to be rational, kind, or merciful; it didn't even matter how foolish or willfully depraved they chose to be.
Yet the person known as Ji Jue was shaped by the care and love of his own kind.
It was precisely for that reason that he could not stomach those vile, twisted monsters who believed they had some semblance of righteousness or justification, only to turn around and wantonly trample on all of it!
"—If some refuse to cherish their own kind, then I'll be the one to teach them what happens when they don't!"
Even if saving the world was beyond his reach, the Ji Jue of today could still do a few small things within his power.
For instance: settle his mind first, finish off the tasks at hand, and then roll up his sleeves to tear those Profound sons of bitches... limb from limb, grinding them into dust!
Chapter 790