Four Pillar Cult!

When Yaxiu woke up, he saw Harvey and Igola eating sandwiches. "Aren't you afraid they're poisoned?" "Then yours, I'll just—" "What I meant was, you should've woken me up to test them for you." Yaxiu quickly snatched the last sandwich and licked it all over to claim ownership, earning a look of profound disgust from Igola. "How long were we asleep just now?" Yaxiu pulled up his game interface. "It's two in the morning now. We were asleep for less than an hour." Igola muttered, "That means we'll have to spend the rest of the day in here..." "Why?" "If there were less than six hours left in the drive, there would be no reason for them to give us food. We're injured and exhausted from lack of sleep. If we went without food for another whole day, there'd be a risk of sudden death. That's why they went out of their way to provide food for us." That little sandwich did nothing to fill his belly; if anything, it made Yaxiu even hungrier. He tapped the padded wall and sighed gloomily, "Are we going to end up in prison again? At this rate, I'm starting to wonder if the title of my Sorcerer Manual after I die will be *Public Prison Reviews*..." "Ending up in prison would already be a great scenario," Igola said softly. "What I fear most is that this is a slave society—where sorcerers make up the slaveholding class, ordinary people are all their slaves, and through the sorcerer tech tree, they've forcefully driven a slave system into a modern developed state..." Harvey asked, "Isn't being a slave better than being a prisoner?" "Better my ass! The biggest problem with a slave society is rule by man instead of the rule of law. When a conflict of interest arises, a slave master's first instinct isn't to solve the problem, but to eliminate whoever caused it. They adore violence, obsess over bloodlines, and heavily discriminate against outsiders. Everyone's social standing is determined from the day they're born, with zero class mobility to speak of." Igola grimaced in disgust. "Even some feudal superstition would be better than slavery." Harvey chuckled. "Then we really did escape from the Blood Moon Country straight into an even worse one. Sigh, when you think about it, the Blood Moon Country was actually pretty decent. If the church had allowed ordinary people to study the necromancy faction, I wouldn't have bothered running away in the first place. Too bad I didn't have the means to attend school back then, and later on I couldn't pass the graduate exam to join the Blood Saint clan. Naturally, I never got the right to study the necromancy faction..." "It might not be a slave society," Yaxiu said, licking the water from his bottle. "Maybe this is a civilized nation even more advanced than the Blood Moon Country, and the kind that doesn't harbor hostility toward refugees from other lands—" "What kind of civilized country would manufacture this kind of specialized prison van?" Igola patted the padding behind him. "Harvey, if your people wanted to kidnap someone, how would you transport them?" "Why ask me?" "You don't know?" "Well, I do..." Harvey mumbled. "I have a friend—honestly, a friend. If it were up to me, I'd turn them into a corpse first and then make them walk back on their own... That friend usually uses drugs combined with a sorcery spirit to hypnotize the target and knock them out. Once tied up, they're tossed straight into the back of a light truck and hauled away." "Would any company in the Blood Moon manufacture a carriage like this?" "Impossible. The closest thing would be an RV, but kidnapping is a relatively low-yield sector in the underworld. No one's going to custom-order a vehicle compartment just for small-time business like that." Igola looked at Yaxiu. "So do you get it now, Cult Leader? Anyone who owns a vehicle like this must belong to a specialized line of work where kidnapping is the main business—most likely a slaver gang. And where there are slaver gangs, there's naturally slavery..." "Wait," Yaxiu raised his hand. "Couldn't they just be human traffickers?" "Sex slaves are a type of slave too—" "They could also be child traffickers." "Child traffickers?" Both Igola and Harvey wore bewildered expressions. "Why abduct children? Who would buy them? What would they even buy them for?" Only then did Yaxiu remember that in the Blood Moon Country, the very concept of the family had broken down. Without buyers, there were naturally no child traffickers. He spent some time describing this vile, monstrous trade, but Igola and Harvey still couldn't wrap their minds around it—like trying to describe to a sedentary couch potato how invigorating working out felt. Even though they had escaped the Blood Moon Country, its culture was still deeply etched into their souls. It was hard for them to comprehend that anyone would go to any length for offspring, even someone else's, to the point of giving rise to an entire criminal industry. In their worldview, offspring might be closer to you than strangers, but at the end of the day they were still 'others', not 'oneself'. In a sense, the Blood Moon had not deliberately eradicated their emotions; it had merely taken one of their valid thought patterns and accelerated it to the absolute extreme—when self-interest became the supreme guiding principle of behavior, emotional actions that required self-sacrifice naturally became incomprehensible. This was also why Yaxiu always remained wary of them. It wasn't just because they were death-row convicts, but because their Blood Moon upbringing had set their moral baseline astronomically low—low enough to rival the project manager who once woke Yaxiu up at three in the morning to finish a PowerPoint deck. Humans truly were creatures of profound limitation, unable to comprehend what they had never seen. Only by witnessing enough of everything could one grasp all the truths of the world. Without sufficient experience, even if a gem were placed before them, they would only take it for a stone. Thus, to obtain the gem, one had to witness the rise and fall of all things first... A bizarre thought suddenly popped into Yaxiu's mind. He shook his head to banish the sudden wave of chuunibyou and said, "Even if it really is a slaver gang, at least our lives are guaranteed for now. Besides, the status of a slave might help us quickly understand this world. At worst, we'll just be runaway slaves. We're prison breakers—when it comes to running away, we're professionals." Igola gave Yaxiu a somewhat surprised look. He stayed silent for quite a while, making Yaxiu squirm under his gaze. "What?" "Actually, I had a faint feeling back in prison," Igola said. "I don't know whether it's courage born of ignorance or blind confidence bred from being a cult leader, but you never seem to fear the malice of fate. "After all, we went through so much to escape the Blood Moon, only to turn around and get captured again. Even I can't help wanting to curse the world, yet you're like a fish with a seven-second memory—the next moment, you're already pondering 'how to make use of being a slave.' "Do you have some kind of trump card that gives you such total confidence?" A trump card? Did the newly drawn Black and White Witch count? Yaxiu scratched his head. "Isn't this just ordinary psychological resilience? Like when you head home after work and your boss suddenly dumps a new task on you that has to be done by morning—after cursing twice in your head, don't you still order takeout and dutifully work overtime?" Harvey remarked, "I don't think ordinary people equate working overtime with getting captured by slavers... Catch." Yaxiu and Igola caught the items Harvey tossed over—Snow White brand moon sugar. "When we get out of the vehicle, we'll be at our weakest, and they'll be at their most relaxed," Harvey said calmly. "This stuff can forcefully hype you up, overcome the exhaustion of sleepless nights, and even speed up sorcery power recovery." "Once we leave the Blood Moon, you won't find anywhere to buy moon sugar," Igola said. "A physical addiction can be broken with sorcery spirits, but in all these years, I've never heard of anyone breaking a psychological addiction. In Shattered Lake Prison, far too many death-row convicts blew all their contribution points just to buy moon sugar." "A country like this should have similar drugs." Harvey patted the padded wall. "The more advanced a nation is, the more popular drugs that fill the void become. All species possess a self-destructive urge. Once survival is no longer a struggle, they pursue activities that are more dangerous and more readily deliver pleasure." "A necromancer's bizarre philosophy." Igola tucked it away. "I'll take it. I won't eat it, but I'll back you up." "Same here." Yaxiu had no interest in testing his drug resistance either, but after thinking it over, he slipped it into his pocket—he could consider giving it to Substitute to see how it reacted. *Remembering Substitute the moment good food appears—as expected of me.jpg* ...... After a long journey, around six in the evening by Blood Moon time, Igola finally felt the vehicle come to a stop. The exhausted trio exchanged glances, knowing that the first major hurdle was upon them. Harvey quietly popped a piece of moon sugar, his vitality surging instantly. The side door of the vehicle slid open. "Come on out, you three." Right then, Yaxiu realized that he could understand the language of this country. Though spoken with an odd accent—roughly like the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin—he could still understand it if he listened carefully. Even within the same language, different cities produced different accents, so an accent was entirely normal. But they had crossed over into a completely different country; how was the basic language still shared? Stepping out of the vehicle, what met their eyes was a sky split between the lingering dusk and emerging stars, alongside what looked like an abandoned industrial park. This was a sight rarely seen in the Blood Moon Country—where the Blood Moon was always in a hurry to assert its presence before the sun had even set. Just as they had expected, the vehicle that transported them was quite advanced. Sleek and silvery-white all over, it still possessed four wheels, but the tires surprisingly lacked tread patterns for traction and anti-skidding. It looked as though slamming on the brakes would send it drifting a dozen meters. Driving it seemed utterly unfathomable; it looked almost like a concept car that existed only in imagination. *This is a nation with highly advanced sorcerer technology—at least more advanced than the Blood Moon.* Upon seeing this vehicle, a crystallization of industrial manufacturing, all three reached the same conclusion. "These three are the otherworlders you need. You may inspect them with the *Book of Gospel*." Standing before Yaxiu were two people who looked ordinary enough: a youthful boy butler and a beautiful girl with purple hair and green eyes. The latter held an elegant orange velvet folding fan and wore a purple trench coat. The moment Yaxiu laid eyes on her, a phrase common in tabloid gossip sprang to mind: *outshining everyone present!* Subconsciously, Yaxiu glanced at Igola—this girl's beauty was practically on par with Igola's! Moreover, because Yaxiu was already familiar with Igola, and the flowers in the wild always smell sweeter than those at home, the unfamiliar girl received bonus points in Yaxiu's heart, completely beating Igola out. From Yaxiu's description, these two hardly qualified as "ordinary enough," did they? But compared to the other group, they truly were ordinary—six bizarre figures in black robes were glaring darkly at Yaxiu and his companions. "Confirmed, they are otherworlders." The lead black-robed figure nodded. "No time to lose, let's make the exchange quickly." The butler stepped forward and produced three controller-like keys, while the black-robed figure brought out a box. Harvey lowered his eyelids, seemingly about to make a move. Yet until the transaction concluded, none of the three made a move. Because the purple-clad girl was watching them with a faint smile the entire time. Yaxiu's 'Beast Instinct' had even been triggered. Evidently, this purple-clad girl was far more of a monster than he was, enough that his subconscious was gripped by fear. The butler handed the box to the purple-clad girl. She opened it and retrieved an octahedral purple crystal. The crystal seemed to possess an internal light source, radiating a warm, gentle glow that accentuated her radiant charm even further, boosting her looks to the point where she utterly trampled Igola. "Transaction complete." The purple-clad girl and the young butler stepped aside. "Well then, these three are handed over to you, Four Pillar Cult." Four Pillar Cult? *Four Pillar Cult!* Harvey and Igola whipped their heads around, staring daggers at Yaxiu. Yaxiu was equally dumbfounded—he had indeed faintly heard the words "Four Pillar Cult" before passing out, but the speaker had a heavy accent and he had been so groggy that he thought he misheard. Before Yaxiu could react, dozens of chains shot from the black-robed figure's sleeves, binding the three of them airtight. They were stuffed into prepared body bags and tossed into their vehicle. He turned to the purple-clad girl and said, "Then we shall return to begin the sacrificial ritual. We look forward to working with you again, Funeral Agency." The purple-clad girl nodded slightly. "Ranked ninth on the *Azula Mission Board*, the Funeral Agency awaits your commissions at any time."