Family Leaderboard Rank 1: Harvey!

Lisi and Annan felt only a gust of wind sweep past before seeing Yaxiu dash over and clamp a hand over Harvey's mouth. "Harvey here just loves running his mouth. Let me shut him up for everyone..." Yaxiu swiftly changed the subject. "In any case, this Future Board definitely got something wrong! Putting aside my connection to Sennheiser, why on earth am I tied to so many other families?" "Indeed." Igola chimed in to bail Yaxiu out. "The Sennheiser family is connected to us, and the Aldo family is our enemy. But as for the rest, we've never even heard of them. On what grounds is the Gospel linking them to Yaxiu?" Annan let out a long sigh, scooping Lisi into her arms and irritably rubbing the girl's white-haired head like petting a cat. "Don't ask me, I don't know either... The only thing I do know is that apart from Aldo, every single one of those families is a renowned consortium, Red Hat dynasty, or political clan in the Gospel Country! Even if their sheer size can't match Sennheiser, their influence is just as formidable, if not more! "Compared to the crime of 'suspected of causing the apocalypse' on the Art Board, the fallout from this Family Leaderboard will be far more vicious. After all, 'causing the apocalypse' is like shouting insults at a massive crowd—everyone assumes someone else will step up to argue back, so no one rushes to pick a fight with you personally. But this time, Yaxiu, you've called out these powerful clans by name and turned them all into your undead army! So long as they want to escape such a fate, they will stop at nothing to crush you!" "It wasn't me, it's the future me," Yaxiu defended himself. "You can't pin things on me that I haven't even done!" "Sorry, but that's the traditional culture of the Gospel Country. If you don't like it, get the hell out," Annan retorted sourly. In truth, Annan also knew this had little to do with Yaxiu. After all, he had spent the past few days accompanying her in the dream amusement park. Still, she simply couldn't swallow her anger. Annan had indeed anticipated that they would become public targets once the second leaderboard came out. Deceiving the Gospel or foreseeing the rankings—either one alone was enough to draw immense scrutiny. But she had never imagined that the aggro they drew would be this massive: they had directly offended virtually every prominent consortium clan in the entire country! The thought of facing a barrage of ten thousand arrows in the future gave Annan an agonizing headache. Now her already tightrope-walking gamble of a plan had to be revised. If it was walking a tightrope before, now it was walking a tightrope while doing push-ups on an acupressure mat—booking a few coffins in advance from Harvey might actually be a prudent choice. And the person responsible for all of this was that wretched man! Having her head vigorously ruffled by Annan, Lisi slumped listlessly, feeling as though she were paying for her father's sins. However, able to vaguely perceive other people's inner emotions, Lisi found it rather strange. She sensed that Annan wasn't truly that angry with Yaxiu. In fact, their relationship seemed to have grown remarkably close; Annan was bantering and bickering with Yaxiu so naturally that the level of interaction was almost on par with Aunt Bogin. Furthermore, what Annan was genuinely irritated about seemed to center on why Yaxiu had a relationship with Qinna and the others... Could Sister Annan... no, Aunt Annan be thinking of... "Speaking of which," Banjie suddenly spoke up, "that man who appeared alongside Yaxiu in the footage..." Everyone fell instantly silent, their gazes turning toward the man in their midst with the highest suspicion—even Yaxiu was no exception. "It couldn't be me." To everyone's surprise, Harvey brushed Yaxiu's hand away and calmly shook his head. "I could never do such a thing." "Aren't you devoted to the necromancy faction, though?" Yaxiu asked. "I am willing to dedicate my entire life's work to the necromancy faction, but that does not mean I would transform living people into the undead." Harvey frowned, appearing genuinely offended. "Did you all think the necromancy faction is just some antisocial sorcery made for slaughter?" Everyone exchanged glances, searching each other's eyes for a differing opinion. Harvey normally didn't mind when others misunderstood him, but at a time like this, he felt compelled to elaborate: "The necromancy faction does not exist to create death, but to utilize death, submit to death, and ultimately conquer death. "To me, living beings and the undead are equally significant, with an insurmountable boundary between them. A living creature struggles with all its might to survive until its final second, ultimately becoming a corpse engraved with a lifetime of experience—that is the gift of nature necromancers love most. "Although I detest the Blood Saint Research Institute, that is merely because they monopolized the corpse supply. Personally, I actually admire and respect the institute's model—the institute doesn't interfere with the lives of the living. They watch life being born, watch it grow, watch it burn, watch it pass away, and only then take the remaining ashes of that life. "That is the proper way of a true necromancer. Only corpses obtained like that are the finest materials. "Converting the living into the undead, on the other hand, is equivalent to severing someone's life halfway through. It prematurely extinguishes the brilliant radiance of life and destroys all the possibilities that life held... That is the behavior I despise above all else. You might as well just kill them outright. "All sorcery factions exist so that people may live better lives, and the necromancy faction is no exception. The dead should serve the living, not the other way around." Harvey concluded, "I respect life—including my own, and those of strangers I do not know. I will gladly plan my death and the deaths of others, but I will not desecrate my life, nor theirs." Though it sounded vaguely comprehensible yet somewhat baffling, as sorcerers, everyone understood Harvey's meaning. When sorcerers study a sorcery faction, they are not merely acquiring knowledge; they are also shaping their worldview, philosophy of life, and core values. Just as Igola believed manipulating rules was an essential skill for civilized society, Harvey believed that only by putting corpses to use could one stride toward a better life. All sorcerers seek to interpret the world and deconstruct their surroundings through their own framework of knowledge. While Harvey might do countless unscrupulous things to corpses, that did not mean he lacked all boundaries toward living beings. On the contrary, during his years as the 'Control Master', what he had pursued was always an efficient, silent method of killing. His most distinguishing trait compared to ordinary people was that he drew a crystal-clear line between life and corpses. Life was life, deserving of respect; a corpse was a corpse, merely material. This was something ordinary people could hardly manage, but it was precisely because Harvey possessed this awareness that he had been able to advance his necromancy faction to the Gold rank. Harvey's speech was therefore in dead earnest. He genuinely did not believe he could ever do such a thing. Having him convert living people into the undead was like asking Igola to devote his every thought entirely to the welfare of others—it was a level of corruption and fall from grace straight out of a fairy tale. Right at this moment, the Family Leaderboard was finally about to announce tonight's luckiest award winner. Yaxiu sighed. "Come on then, let's see which great family I'm going to offend next—" [Family Leaderboard Rank 1: Blood Moon Corpse King Clan · Harvey] [Blood Moon Corpse King Clan: The most ferocious undead unit type created by Archibald Harvey through fusing and weaving together vast multitudes of living beings, further refined by extracting and incorporating Blood Saints and Moon Shadows. Inside each Blood Moon Corpse King dwell thousands upon thousands of tortured souls. They universally possess basic traits such as [Bloodthirst Aura], [Starving Wolf Giant Corpse Transformation], [Immortality], [Tombstone Soul Lock], and [Immunity to Miracle Weaving].] [Head of the Clan: Archibald Harvey] Yaxiu blinked at Harvey, and the rest of the group stared at him as well. *Whatever happened to never desecrating life? The Gospel doesn't seem to buy it at all.* Harvey pondered for a moment, then took several steps away from Yaxiu. "What, afraid I'm gonna hit you?" "I'm afraid that when the Gospel strikes you with lightning, I'll be caught in the blast." Harvey pointed at the Book of Gospel. "See? That's what happens from getting close to you. Even I'm being framed by the Gospel now."