A Worthwhile Death

Harvey's childhood was spent in a rearing institute alongside ogres, beastmen, and goblins. From this racial makeup alone, one could tell that his rearing institute belonged to the lower-middle tier in Kaimeng City—the institute was merely waving the banner of "diversity" to scam subsidies. Evidently, his childhood had been quite blissful: boundless entertainment freedom (nobody gave a damn), blending right in with the other kids (physically beating each other black and blue), daily hands-on social practice (fighting over food), and access to top-tier education (online educational resources). Yet unlike Financier—who had risen untainted from the muck to later become mayor—Harvey never managed to leap out of this mire. Still, he hadn't gone bad either. After leaving the rearing institute at age fifteen, he went off to pour concrete on construction sites. Yes, the terrifying, top assassin of Blood Moon's Kaimeng City, the "Control Master"; the "Ghost King" who would in the future turn the Gospel Country into a realm of the dead; the "Ghost Knight" renowned across the Senluo Wasteland—in the beginning, he had been nothing more than a construction drudge. What's more, he spent three whole years at it, leaving what had once been a boy of somewhat sickly beauty thoroughly tanned and dark. Nor was he like his fellow workers, spending money buying sweets to chase cheap thrills, giving away cash at casinos, or splurging on flesh at tea cafes. He honestly saved up his money for a down payment, intending to eventually buy a house in the suburbs. Looking back now, even Harvey found his past self bizarre—why buy real estate? The vast majority of Blood Moon people rented. Beyond property being exorbitantly expensive, it was mostly because Blood Moon people lived solitary lives and had little need for a "settled home." Wherever they slept tonight was home. Yet perhaps from watching those warm, cozy mansions in movies and television, or perhaps because he had built so many houses while pouring concrete, an odd obsession had taken deep root in his mind: he wanted a house of his own. In his spare time, Harvey would flip through home renovation magazines and architectural reference books to pass the hours, planning how he would decorate his own place, what materials to use, what style to pick, how to run the wiring, how to... He even worked occasionally as a part-time renovation worker just to gain experience for his future home. While other decorators traded flirtatious glances with still-charming mistresses of the house, he was scrutinizing whether a suspended ceiling was superfluous. His coworkers called him an oddball. After all, everyone else only cared about where to party tonight, while he alone was thinking ten or twenty years down the line—and whether one would even still be alive by then was hard to say. Blood Moon people were always optimistic in that way. Barring any unforeseen events, as long as Harvey steered clear of consumer traps, achieving this modest goal was well within reach. Yet the world had never been fair. One day, the night watchman took leave, and Harvey volunteered for the night shift guarding the site to earn some extra cash. He was sitting peacefully in the guard shack reading a magazine when strange noises came from the construction site. Stepping outside to check, he discovered that beneath the crimson light of the Blood Moon, a young girl in black was hacking away at a corpse on the ground, blade by blade, until the body ceased all movement. Harvey quietly stood by watching. The girl whipped her head around toward him, her high ponytail swinging back. Then she stalked over, shoved Harvey to the ground with a thrust of her hand, leaned over him, and pressed a scimitar against his neck. Formidable and haughty, she declared, "Here, help me dispose of the corpse!" Harvey had no idea her name was Na'erbeier, nor who she was killing, let alone what organization she belonged to. Yet his heart stirred, and he replied, "Then I guess that makes me your accomplice." That was Harvey's first time disposing of a corpse, and also his crudest. Perhaps due to that twist of fate, after following Na'erbeier into the organization, he became a cleaner, specifically tasked with corpse disposal. He hadn't shown any necromancy faction talent back then, but he was exceptionally meticulous in his work. He concocted more than thirty chemical reagents on his own to treat bloodstains, feces, minced flesh, and various other corpse remains across different environments. Every scene he handled was so spotless that not even Bloodmad Hunters could detect a trace. Until one day, while cleaning up a corpse in an alleyway, a wild necromancer found Harvey's obsessive dedication to dead bodies so utterly appealing to his peculiar tastes that he took Harvey on as an apprentice. Thus did Harvey step into the world of sorcerers. He gradually evolved from a cleaner into the Control Master and cleaner—murdering targets and disposing of their corpses on the spot, a seamless one-stop service from death to deep-sea dumping. Harvey and Na'erbeier often went on missions together, though they rarely conversed much. Na'erbeier had tried initiating topics, but Harvey would usually respond with perfunctory silence, unable to contribute much—he truly lacked education and possessed no sense of humor. The only two topics Harvey was ever interested in were livor mortis and his future home. On those, it was Na'erbeier's turn to fall silent. Still, she would listen to Harvey talk about how he would furnish his new home in the future, or what kind of livor mortis looked most aesthetic on a corpse... Those peaceful days lasted until Harvey's face was seen during a mission, exposing his details to the Bloodmad Hunters. Persisting in hiding would only drag the organization down. Thus, Harvey wiped his own memories of being the "Control Master" and let himself be captured by the Bloodmad Hunters as a mere cleaner, after which he was cast into Shattered Lake Prison. A person's entire life marches toward death; a person's worth is defined by the worth of their death. This was a famous maxim among necromancers. Necromancers were actually a thoroughly gloomy bunch. Perhaps because they spent all day gazing into death, death gazed silently back at them, occasionally even patting their heads. Yet necromancers were also remarkably positive, for they were the staunchest opponents of suicide and throwing one's life away, proclaiming that "only a corpse that strives to survive until the very end holds greater worth." Harvey knew going to Shattered Lake meant only death, but he didn't care; he had never cared much about anything in his life. Since his heart had stirred only once in his entire lifetime—for that girl who had ordered him to clean up a corpse—dying to protect her counted as a worthwhile death. Only two years later did Harvey learn that he hadn't protected anything at all. That was why he banded together with Yaxiu and the others to break out of prison. He could not remain in Shattered Lake; he could not die a worthless death. Dying a worthwhile death had become the only thing he cared about. Harvey had imagined his own death countless times: dying during the prison break, dying in vengeance, dying on the run, dying in Gospel, dying to enact revenge against Annan, dying while storming the Yisu Imperial Palace, dying in battle against Silver Lantern... Yet in the end, he was dying on the final step on the way home. What an end befitting a necromancer... ...Home? Heh, it was all Yaxiu's fault for talking about going home so many times that I almost started believing... ...that I had a home too. Harvey felt himself sinking endlessly into the deep sea. Turning his head, he beheld a pitch-black corpse dragon draped as if in a gossamer veil of mist. Its veil glittered, as though the starry sky had been draped over its shoulders. Its pitch-black body was immense and majestic, yet upon closer look, its form was almost entirely woven of chains. The Mistveil Corpse Prison Dragon. Whenever he studied necromancy sorcery, this dragon would frequently appear to assist Harvey, even possessing Alice's body. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for Harvey to develop the Ghost King Shackles into the Blood Moon Corpse King in just a few short months. He had never known why the Mistveil Corpse Prison Dragon helped him, but he had never cared either. Seeing it now, Harvey had a vague epiphany. "My soul can't go to Hell—it belongs to you?" "Although I wanted to wait in Hell for those two fellows... they won't be coming down anytime soon." "Then let it be yours," Harvey murmured softly. "This time, I suppose I..." "...died a worthwhile death." The Mistveil Corpse Prison Dragon spread its wings of death, gently folding Harvey into its embrace.