Papa

Night wind blew in gusts under the lonely blood moon, accompanied by the occasional surge of waves and the sound of finger sharks leaping from the water. Yaxiu looked on coldly, seemingly uninterested in their conversation. "Even so—" Andere asked, grasping at it like a lifeline, "what does that have to do with selling out the citizens' interests to curry favor with the two Blood Moon races? Did you see through everything only to decide you wanted to join them?" "I exhausted every means, united every race, and fawned over the Blood Moon, all to push forward the formation of the combat league." "But this—" "You don't understand, Andere. A short-sighted, cowardly human like you knows nothing of real backbone." The ogre said, "That's right. Just as you foresaw, once the combat league is established, violence, death, and slaughter will become the main themes of this city, and the Blood Saints and Moon Shadows will grin from ear to ear. "Yet the new generation will also learn brutality, savagery, and cruelty through it. They will develop the guts that none of our past generations possessed—the guts to raise a blade even against the divine Sovereign!" "Just for that?" Andere's eyes widened. "Not only that. More importantly... Hahaha! Though I've always refused to admit I came from that dump called Club Bone rearing institute, I must admit Club Bone wasn't entirely useless. It at least taught me a way to break through Blood Moon law—" The ogre laughed heartily. "Fight! Nothing helps two people understand each other better than fighting. An ogre has one and only one way of making friends—walk over and beat them to a pulp!" "You sold out the people's interests, buttered up the two Blood Moon races, and clung to your mayoral seat just to pursue such an elusive, empty goal?" Andere gave a bitter smile. "Financier, are you really that benevolent?" "You don't understand, Andere. You don't understand in the slightest..." the ogre said. "If we want to bring down the two Blood Moon races, or even challenge the Blood Moon Sovereign, that's never going to be a miracle achieved by just one or two people. It's a historical shift that must be driven by all races and all people together... Only by paying any price can this nation ever be changed." "At any price?" "Yes, at any price. You are a price, I am a price, and these current generations of citizens are prices, too. We are already ruined. The hope for change can only rest in the future. The greatest meaning of our existence is to serve as fertilizer to nourish the soil, in the hope that this foul earth may one day blossom with normal flowers. "Of course, if I claimed I had no selfish motives, that would be a lie as well." The ogre glanced at the blood moon in the night sky. "If everything goes smoothly, my prestige will reach its zenith; if my successors carry on along my path, a great revolution will inevitably erupt. My name, Alandor Financier, will be remembered through the ages as a wise ruler, and the wisdom of ogres will be crowned with the glory of challenging the divine Sovereign..." He shouted fanatically, "I want all of you mongrels to admit from the bottom of your hearts that ogres are the greatest, cleverest, and bravest race in this world!" Andere stared at the ogre, who was submerged in chains nearly up to his neck, momentarily choked into silence. The moment Financier revealed that the foundational roots of the Blood Moon Country existed solely to serve the two Blood Moon races, he was already marked for death. The citizens would never let him live. It was just like being trapped in an airtight room filled with poison gas where everyone was slowly dying in their sleep, only for someone to wake up and scream like an alarm clock, waking the rest. Would the others thank him? No, because waking up had no purpose other than multiplying their suffering. The walls were impenetrable, and mortals could not challenge the divine Sovereign. They only wanted this malicious alarm clock to stop. What was more, Financier had no intention of saving them. On the contrary, the ogre wanted to offer these current generations up as sacrifices, wringing out their worth to water the ground so that future generations could be saved. Apart from a small fraction of middle-aged and elderly people, the majority of young citizens were incandescent with rage—What right do you have to sacrifice us just to save the next generation? What does the next generation have to do with us? What the hell do we care how they live? This ogre mayor was nothing more than an evil, race-obsessed fanatic! Suddenly, the stone pillar beneath the ogre shot upward, hoisting him over a hundred meters into the sky. Looking up from below, the crowd saw the ogre mayor standing dead center against the blood moon, looking as if the scarlet moonlight would swallow and dissolve him at any second! "Votes have exceeded fifty percent. The executioner arrives ahead of schedule," Yaxiu said calmly. "The executioner arriving this time is the Hydra Executioner." The entire Shattered Lake seemed to boil. Amidst the surging waves, the stone pillar split into eight hideous, monstrous snake bodies, and the ogre's stone seat gradually morphed into the maw of a giant serpent. He sat within the serpent's mouth; with just a gentle snap of its jaws, it could digest and dissolve him. Yet those who received redemption in the Blood Moon Trial never met such an easy, comfortable end. A camera eye flew high into the sky to film. The ogre looked toward it and laughed. "Yaxiu Heath, just as you wished, I've thoroughly ripped the face off the Blood Moon Country, though I doubt it will accomplish much... What a shame. If I had known what you were capable of earlier, I certainly would have made contact with the Four Pillar Cult in secret... No wonder the Blood Moon investigates the Four Pillar Cult so strictly..." Hiss! The other eight serpent heads suddenly danced wildly beneath the moon, lunging from all directions to tear into the ogre's limbs! Tear! Bloody wounds burst open across his body, every drop falling into the giant serpent's maw, not a single one wasted. The ogre's frame trembled slightly, but his eyes grew brighter and brighter, the smile on his face turning increasingly ferocious as his neat, white teeth seemed to sharpen. "You fools raised under the blood moon, no savior could ever be born among you... Nor do you scum deserve to be saved by one... At best, all you could ever produce is a schemer like me... "I once thought you merely couldn't stomach a kind-hearted savior, but I never expected you couldn't even stomach a vicious schemer like me. "No matter." Financier let out an arrogant, savage grin. "Ever since the day I was born, I've been used to the shame of being ostracized by fools." Snap! Beneath the blood moon, nine serpents tore him apart and devoured him. ...... ... In an ogre art studio in Kaimeng City. Discarded meal boxes and garbage littered the room, blending with spilled paints to produce an indescribably pungent stench. A young ogre sat in a battered armchair, watching the light screen as Financier was torn apart and devoured by the nine serpents. This was not the first time he had seen Financier. In countless news reports, he had seen this fellow clansman dressed in fine suits attending all manner of elegant events, and he knew Financier was hailed as the "Most Refined Ogre." In bistros, he had cursed this ogre mayor countless times—cursing him for swapping out his teeth to pander to voters, cursing him for doing nothing to take care of ogres, cursing him for hoarding so much wealth without ever handing any out to everyone else... When the trial first began, he had also eagerly anticipated the sight of Financier being ground into paste. He had long resented and even hated Financier—we're all ogres, so why do you get to be mayor and revel in glory and riches while we're stuck in the Lower District, not even daring to order takeout? If it had been a human mayor or an elf mayor, he wouldn't have been half as angry. But Financier was different. You're an ogre, so what gives you the right to live better than the rest of us? Just moments ago, he had cast a redemption vote against Financier as well. Yet as he stared at the execution on the light screen now, the young ogre didn't know why, but a hollow emptiness gnawed at his chest. It hurt—worse than starvation, worse than being beaten by street gangs. He faintly realized something, and that suspicion seemed to morph into a hydra of its own, biting fiercely into his heart. Overcome with pain, he collapsed onto the floor. Tears spilled uncontrollably from his eyes, yet when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. He dry-heaved, retching as though he wanted to cough up his very soul, yet nothing came. He wanted to call out, but didn't know what to scream. Mayor? Financier? That bastard who was viler than an orc dancer? Right then, a voice message suddenly chimed from the light screen: "Congratulations! Because your redemption vote successfully penalized the criminal, you have been entered into the 'Wheel of Justice Heralds' lucky draw, and have won third prize! You are hereby awarded..." The voice message shattered his psychological defenses completely. The young ogre, who had never feared heaven or earth, could hold back no longer. He curled into a ball on the floor like an infant and wailed at the top of his lungs, tears and snot smearing across his face as he wept until he could hardly breathe, babbling incoherently. "Waaah... ugh... sob... Mama... ugh... Papa..."