I've Become the Stand-in

At six this morning, just as the sky was beginning to pale and Yaxiu was taking a bath right after Igola, everyone's Book of Gospel popped up on its own again. Only four days had passed, and the Book of Gospel had already updated with its fifth list: the Evil Arts Board. Evil arts, as the name implied, were evil sorcery factions. In truth, this definition was rather absurd. Even an ogre sorcerer with binary black-and-white thinking knew that sorcery itself knew neither good nor evil—only sorcerers possessed virtue or malice. For instance, the Six Emblems' legendary necromancer had established the Mermaid Fish-Mint Farm for his clan. Setting aside Yaxiu's personal views, the Mermaid Fish-Mint Farm had indeed transformed Fanmula into a happy, prosperous city and dramatically boosted the productivity of its citizens. Thus, in Fanmula, the necromancy faction was undeniably progressive, righteous, and benevolent. Yet while sorcery itself had no morality, the environments in which one cultivated it certainly had better and worse conditions. Take the necromancy faction as an example once more: if this were an earthly paradise where everyone was immortal, how could someone cultivate necromancy without any source of corpses? Consequently, in an immortal paradise, the necromancy faction would unconditionally qualify as an evil art, because practicing it would inherently require murder. The "evil arts" defined by the Gospel Country were sorcery factions that could not be cultivated in a normal society: Plague, Famine, War, Death, Chaos, Despair... For a sorcerer to cultivate these factions, they had to actively drive society into collapse. Therefore, every evil sorcerer could be said to be guilty of monstrous atrocities; becoming manure for Lalafells was their rightful destiny. More importantly, these evil arts contributed nothing to productivity. Necromancy, at the very least, improved the recycling efficiency of corpses. But plague, famine, war, chaos—which among them didn't reduce productive efficiency? Even if other combat factions didn't increase productivity, at least they didn't actively diminish it! If this were a chaotic era where multiple nations shared borders, these evil factions might still serve to defend the homeland. But nowadays, each country existed in its own isolated domain, and traveling abroad depended entirely on whether the Void Realm granted a transit passage. There was no need whatsoever for national military readiness. If not for the fact that one had to fight in the Void Realm and muster power to suppress the Abyss, Yaxiu had no doubt that combat sorcerers would sit at the very bottom of the social hierarchy (unless they were legendary Sanctuary Sorcerers). Every era had its own theme, and in a stable society, creation sorcerers were the one and only meta answer. If ordinary combat sorcerers were sewer professions, evil art sorcerers were downright cesspool-tier. Thus, the Evil Arts Board updated by the Gospel today listed the ten most sickening, cesspool sorcerers of the next fifty years. In the era of the impending apocalypse, if they weren't going down in history for glory, they were certainly going down in infamy. Every single one of them had taken advantage of social turmoil to engineer disasters of city-destroying proportions, reintroducing concepts like plague, famine, war, and chaos—notions virtually eradicated by the Gospel—back into this realm. Frankly speaking, Yaxiu had little standing to despise the people on the Evil Arts Board. Leaving himself aside, Igola had annihilated an entire city on the Scheme Board, and Harvey had created ten great necromancy clans on the Family Board. Compared to them, the figures on the Evil Arts Board weren't even worthy of carrying their shoes. If Yaxiu genuinely hated villains, he should have engaged Road Rash mode and kicked the other two motorcycles right off the highway bridge. However, on one hand, Yaxiu believed the Gospel had merely misunderstood Igola and Harvey; on the other hand, being good friends with them, his loyalty naturally lay by their side. Just as the Gospel constantly slandered him as the Source of Turmoil, Igola and Harvey had never once doubted him—though in truth, Yaxiu somewhat wished they would doubt him just a little. Their utter lack of suspicion made him feel somewhat underestimated. Just like the Happiness Board, as soon as the Evil Arts Board was released, every single entry was invalidated by Yaxiu. That was also why they were currently speeding across the highway bridge—Annan was finally certain that all subsequent boards would be accelerated and invalidated, which meant the "Assassinate the Princess" plan could officially begin, and they no longer needed to play house in Feidengla. However, the actions of "Gospel Yaxiu" on the Evil Arts Board deeply unsettled the real Yaxiu. If Gospel Yaxiu had persuaded, coerced, or even slain the Echoers on the Evil Arts Board, Yaxiu could have accepted it, even if it didn't quite match his personality. Yet Gospel Yaxiu chose instead to make them repent. It was naively, exquisitely cruel. To put it simply, before these Echoers had even embarked on the path of evil arts, Gospel Yaxiu appeared before them in advance, stuffing the catastrophic visions they would cause in the future, the despair and rancor of their victims, and even the agony wrought by evil arts directly into their minds, leaving them to repent of their transgressions and commit suicide. Perhaps deciding that Yaxiu had done a good deed this time, or perhaps feeling that a wanted warrant was utterly pointless against him, the Imperial Red Hats finally rescinded his bounty, as if encouraging him to slay more villains and perform more good deeds from now on. Yet Yaxiu was most dissatisfied with the Evil Arts Board. If the first three boards had skewed his character and the Happiness Board had twisted it, then the Evil Arts Board had practically remodeled his personality entirely. Gospel Yaxiu's actions in it amounted to passing lofty judgment on the Echoers using misdeeds they hadn't even committed yet. Never mind that he had the power to guide those Echoers back to the righteous path—that would be excessively saintly, and Yaxiu had no interest in saving potentially fallen souls anyway. Yet Gospel Yaxiu could have simply settled things with a single stroke of his sword, whether to disrupt the Gospel, save the world, or simply out of disgust. But no, he insisted on forcing this repentance step, placing himself on the judge's throne like a god passing sentence on sinners who had yet to commit a crime. If one could judge "the self of the present" using "the sins of the future," wouldn't Yaxiu himself be the most deserving of death? In the Evil Arts Board, Yaxiu saw no humans; he saw only a god and playthings. And unfortunately, from the moment he transmigrated until now, his own status had always been that of a plaything. To him, therefore, Gospel Yaxiu felt like an exploited worker degrading into a scab. ... As if sensing Yaxiu's somber mood, Annan changed the subject: "Look, Nabistin isn't far now." Yaxiu looked up. On the distant horizon, buildings shimmering with arcs of blue light emerged, and a sprawling metropolis brimming with futuristic technology gradually came into view. "Does Nabistin only have one level?" "Nabistin has three." "Huh?" Yaxiu paused, glancing toward the clean, clear sky above Nabistin. "But—" "Yaxiu, do you know why double-tier city construction technology was developed in the first place?" Annan asked. "It was because the Yisu Empress wanted the imperial capital to adopt the newest advancements of the technological revolution. "However, renovating and rebuilding a city is exceedingly troublesome; starting afresh with a new city is far simpler. Yet the Yisu royal family had no desire to relocate the capital. Thus, a whimsical miracle project was born: construct a new city directly above the original capital. Once the new city was finished, earth sorcery miracles were used to sink the old city underground and lower the new city onto the surface, completing the transition between the old and new capitals. "Double-tier city construction technology developed from this very foundation, only reaching full maturity and practical implementation in the last fifty years. Although the imperial capital cannot build a second tier that blocks out the sun, that didn't matter. Capital transitions have occurred twice already, which is why Nabistin has three tiers in total: the bottom tier, the mid-tier, and the surface. "Nabistin vets outsiders very strictly, but that's only required for the surface city," Annan said. "The bottom tier, on the other hand, is a chaotic zone where not even Red Hats patrol. That is our destination tonight, as well as the gathering ground for countless criminals, dreamers, and the ambitious." By now, the aerial bridge began descending toward the lower roadways, presenting Yaxiu and the others with three routes: the surface highway, the second-tier tunnel, and the bottom-tier tunnel. Following Annan's instructions, they all entered the bottom-tier tunnel. Traffic steadily thickened along the way, carrying both cargo trucks and hovercars, among which they were utterly inconspicuous. After traveling deep within for a long while, they finally emerged from the cramped tunnel, momentarily dazed by the vast, open expanse that greeted them. Towering skyscrapers dozens of stories high, colossal virtual-reality advertising projections, delivery drones zipping through the air, congested streams of inbound vehicles... Had it not been for the bioluminescent mushrooms visible on the ceiling overhead, Yaxiu and the others would have thought they had arrived in some city that never slept. Above the tollgate overpass at the end of the inbound traffic hung a dazzling, glowing banner. "'Welcome to the hell closest to heaven—Nabistin's Underground,'" Yaxiu read softly. ... After paying the entry fee, the Funeral group entered the subterranean city without a hitch. Because they were riding sports motorcycles, their full-face motorcycle helmets drew no suspicion. "We got in that easily?" Igola was incredulous. "Nabistin doesn't care at all?" "On the surface, they don't; look around, people wearing hoods aren't checked either," Annan said. "Though that's likely intentional. Nabistin is the imperial capital, gathering the most resources in all of the Gospel, so it's destined to attract the most antisocial criminals... This place is the Gospel's largest trash bin." "I thought Feidengla was already the Gospel's rock bottom," Yaxiu remarked. "Feidengla is merely backward; this place is chaotic," Annan whispered into Yaxiu's ear. "Your Blood Moon surely has places like this too, where unstable elements are gathered and managed together, right?" Yaxiu thought, *Actually, yes.* But Blood Moon used prisons plus warzones; the Gospel had actually designated an entire subterranean city to brew venom, right beneath the imperial capital's backside. Calling it a trash bin was too gentle; it was more like the Gospel's cesspool... Wait, that metaphor seemed to insult himself as well. "In that case," Harvey spoke up from beside them, "the Echoers from the Evil Arts Board are likely here too?" "Even if they aren't here now, they'll end up here sooner or later," Annan said. "There's no place for them out there anymore." Right at that moment, an uproar suddenly broke out in the surrounding traffic. Many people stepped out of their vehicles and looked up, someone crying out in terror: "The Shadow of Plague!" Yaxiu and the others looked up and saw a figure standing upon the overpass where the banner hung. It was someone they all recognized—ranked fifth on the Evil Arts Board, the "Shadow of Plague," Rog Dyoul! He was an ordinary sorcerer of about twenty with delicate, clean features. Before the apocalypse, his primary faction was poison arts; after the apocalypse, he switched from poison arts to plague. Judging solely by appearances, one would never imagine that in the future, he would unleash a virulent plague causing hundreds of thousands of deaths simply to advance his faction attainment and reach the Legendary realm—an utterly inhumane criminal. Yet right now, this famous future figure stood expressionlessly atop the overpass. With total naturalness, he drew a dagger, carved open his chest, and pulled out a pulsing black heart from within. Yaxiu's heart jolted as he recalled Rog's actions on the Evil Arts Board following Gospel Yaxiu's appearance: *"After repenting, Rog deeply realized that his existence was utterly meaningless. Thus, under Yaxiu's gaze, he walked to the overpass, carved out his heart and crushed it, activating the ritual miracle he would master in the future to infect himself with the ruthless plague of his own creation. Flesh, bone, and even his soul rapidly melted away. Like tears of remorse, the residual liquid formed the word 'Sin' upon the ground..."* By now, Rog had already begun melting into liquid, corroding streaks across the roadway as nearby vehicles hastily swerved aside. Once Rog had completely dissolved into the air, no one dared approach, watching the corroded marks on the ground only from afar. "Sin..." "It's just like the scenes on the Evil Arts Board..." "It's that man... It can only be that man!" "He's come to Nabistin!" "The future Demon Lord of Calamity, the Source of Turmoil of the apocalypse, the immortal devil with countless followers—Yaxiu Heath has descended upon Nabistin!" "He even followed the steps on the future board, making Rog repent and commit suicide!" "Fate is woven, firm as stone! The Gospel made no mistake; everything is already set in stone!" Amid the frantic, chaotic crowd, the members of Funeral in their full-face helmets looked silently at Yaxiu. Yaxiu spread his hands helplessly. "Evidently," the cult leader said, "I've become the stand-in."