The old town of Quintus is an interesting collection of buildings.
In fact, twenty years ago, it was the 'New Town'.
Today, twenty years later, it has been called the old town by all Quintus people. There is no reason, everyone calls it that. The few people who knew the reason remained silent.
Of course, dead people cannot speak.
How ruthlessly the times change with each passing day. Even the bones of the workers who once lived in the old city are now invisible. All of them were completely buried, with no cemetery, no tombstones, and no names.
Death means losing everything, doesn't it?
But at least one person remembers them.
A dead soul remembers.
Khalil jumped off the broken roof and dodged the patrol vehicle of the Glory Overseer.
The motorcycle rolled over the potholed road, and the two people sitting on it were jolted and cursed a few times. They didn't know that at this moment, there was a dark shadow flashing above their heads.
Watching him and his companions go away, Khalil shook his head, with some regret in his expression.
The people who patrol are cautious, or rather, the people who map out these patrol routes are cautious. He set up many routes along the highway, and each route had intersections with each other. This makes quiet killing a luxury.
After all, looking at it this way, the disappearance of any group of people will soon attract the attention of others.
Khalil can erase the sounds of killing, but not the results.
Every time he swings his sword, someone will die - and death cannot be concealed.
Khalil moved on.
He knew every detail of the old town. Moving forward, turning, running into alleys, and jumping onto the eerie spire houses - in just twelve minutes, he had reached the goal of his trip.
A bell tower.
Once, it was one of the many symbols of the old town. Around the clock tower, there will be many neon lights and suspended billboards from the factory. The dark night was filled with colorful reflections, and the war that broke out near the bell tower never stopped for a day.
All the gangs want it.
It is silent, tall, standing in the darkness, like some kind of symbol, forcing everyone who sees it to try to conquer it.
However, all of this was completely changed with the advent of the Great Purge. Subsequently, the establishment of new urban areas made the situation worse.
Today, it can truly be called a ghost town. Only the general area is still in use, and it is not used by workers.
Very much in line with Nostramo's temperament, Khalil thought.
He couldn't help but twitch the corners of his mouth and smiled coldly.
Khalil stepped forward and climbed up the ancient building in a few deft jumps. When he climbed to the top and walked into the core of the bell tower through the small arched door, as expected, he did not see the huge copper bell here.
Was it stolen, or was it collected by a noble? Khalil had no answer for that.
He came to the other end of the small round arch door and his eyes were already on a highway.
It was very different from the darkness of the old town. There are incandescent lamps every fifty meters, making the entire road so bright that it doesn't look like it was created by Nostramo.
The Glory Warlord has set up a key defense here. If we insist on saying so, the previous sentries and patrols are just appetizers. This checkpoint, which is set up every five hundred meters, is a luxurious meal.
Gunmen are everywhere, and they even have Sentinel Troopers - a bunch of truly dim-witted iron golems built by the craftsmen of Prime Hive and sold astonishingly.
It is worth mentioning that the road surface condition is also very good. This is thanks to the workers who are rushed to maintain the road every two months.
…but where are they now?
Khalil had no answer.
He exhaled softly, then bent down, took away the bricks and tiles piled up on the edge of the small round arch door, and knocked away some dust before sitting on the ground.
He would wait for their arrival, just as he had done in the past. As soon as he catches their scent...he leaps out of the darkness and slits his prey's throat.
But before this could be successfully carried out, he needed to be patient.
A qualified hunter should have patience, which is also a rare quality. Without it, you will not be able to do this job.
"Patience, Ghost," Khalil muttered. "Don't get hurt, don't let yourself down."
Yeah, don't let yourself down.
He lowered his head and clenched his hands, keeping the blade close to his skin.
------------------
"Don't run," Ghost said. "You shouldn't run, you should accept this."
"Get away, you monster!"
A man cried and yelled. He stood in an attic full of blood. He clearly had a gun in his hand, but he didn't have the courage to pull the trigger on the ghost again.
In fact, his hand was shaking so much that he could barely hold it.
Half a minute ago, he finished emptying a magazine, but he didn't even touch the corner of the ghost's clothes.
And if you go back half a minute, you will see how a black figure instantly entered the attic and tore off the limbs of one of the two sentry men between two waves.
If you could see the scene of screaming and blood splattering... maybe you would be able to empathize with this man's intense fear at this moment.
Facing the man's cry, Ghost just tilted his head.
So, is this what fear does?
He nodded thoughtfully, finally beginning to truly understand why Khalil had to resort to silence on every mission.
He originally thought that Khalil did this just because he liked it. Ghost really didn't expect that Kalil did this just because it was more effective.
They are completely vulnerable to fear.
In fact, this is even the last outpost that the ghost is responsible for cleaning. However, this crying man was not the first person to collapse in front of the ghost tonight.
There were many before him.
"Don't come here, don't come here!" the man cried bitterly. "Please, don't come here, I don't want to die, I don't want to die..."
"Aren't you going to shoot me again?" Ghost asked softly, hissing as he stood there.
"me......"
"Shoot," the ghost said quietly. "I want you to accept this."
"What are you accepting? Are you sick?!"
The man yelled in collapse, his voice echoing in the shattered attic. His fat belly was stained with blood, and a torn corpse behind him was watching all this silently.
"Accept your death, Barry."
Ghost replied in a low voice, his voice was slow and low, his tone was soft and natural. It wasn't like he was threatening or pressuring, in fact, he sounded almost like he was having a normal conversation with Barry...
chat.
"We heard your conversation with Jovan, Barry. You have accepted to be a servant of House Skolywok and given everything to them..."
"So, why can't you accept your death? You are not willing to die like this, but why? Why are you not willing to die?"
Ghost asked sincerely, and he took the question seriously. Because he couldn't think of an answer, and he didn't want to bother Khalil—and Barry...
Barry's eyes widened and he froze.
His legs began to weaken in the next second, and then he knelt on the ground involuntarily.
We heard you talking to Jovan...
us......
us.
Vengeful souls.
I see.
No wonder the bullets couldn't hit him, no wonder he was so tall, no wonder my shouting failed to attract the attention of other groups, no wonder... Jovan suddenly became...
It turns out they came to find me.
Barry's face began to twitch, and he began to gasp for air, but the air he sucked in was completely unable to provide him with relief.
His breathing began to become more and more rapid, and his expression began to become more and more collapsed. In the end, he even knelt on the ground and sobbed.
The cry breaks.
"Don't cry." Ghost said softly. "Shoot me, Barry, and accept this."
"Crack."
A gun fell to the ground. Barry refused in his own way. Ghost frowned and began to think about Khalil's words.
"Why...is this happening to me?"
Barry cried. "Why don't you go find them? The vengeful spirits? Why don't you go find the people who asked us to do these things?"
"Who are they?" Midnight Ghost asked, not wanting to correct Barry's mistake in naming them yet.
"The Scolewock family!"
Barry roared, his eyes widened, filled with bloodshot eyes, and the turbid eyeballs looked like glass corroded by acid rain to the ghost.
"Why don't you go find them?!"
Faced with Barry's questioning, Ghost just squatted down. He was entrenched at the other end of the darkness in the attic, like a monster waiting for an opportunity in the darkness.
His expression is calm, natural and patient.
Khalil taught him that during conversations, the other person should feel a sense of respect. And now, he was already talking to Barry.
He continued: "What did they ask you to do?"
Barry was stunned. He was the one who raised this question, but he didn't seem to have thought about what happened after this question.
But Ghost thought about it.
Or so - Khalil thought about it.
The hissing voice of the Midnight Haunter sounded again in the darkness: "They asked you to exploit those workers, collect taxes, and suppress those who resisted, right?"
"Yep!"
As if grasping a life-saving straw, Barry began to nod his head repeatedly, a strange madness flashed across his tearful face. "Yes! They asked us to do it!"
"So, do they let you cannibalize, open a butcher shop, murder, traffic people, kill people on the street, and rob wantonly?" Ghost asked again.
Barry was stunned again. He didn't expect this. In his mind, all this was a matter of course. Being a member of a gang means receiving these privileges.
He never thought that these things would one day become questions from others.
Moreover, he actually had no way to answer.
"So, are they asking you to follow their example and drive the civilians who can't pay the money out of the hive, leaving them to fend for themselves in the wilderness and become food for wild beasts?"
"So, did they ask you to imitate them and be superior to others?"
The ghost stood up slowly.
"You have long accepted the fact that you have become a servant of the Skolywock family. In fact, you are very comfortable with this identity, Barry. You have accepted the benefits that this identity brings, and you should accept the responsibilities that it brings. .”
"No, no, that's not it..." Barry said shakily.
"Yes, Barry," Ghost whispered. "Yes."
"No!" Barry roared ferociously.
"I do this because I have to do it! I have to do it! I can't live without this. I don't want to get lung disease like those workers in the factory. I don't want to cough up blood and be covered in dust like them-"
Ghost nodded silently, knowing what Barry was talking about.
Workers in factories get sick, they get all kinds of diseases. The most common is lung disease, and if one person gets it, the whole family gets it.
He had seen it many times when passing through shantytowns - a family, or a person, lying on the side of the street, lying on the moldy hard board where someone had died, coughing up blood, in great pain, waiting for death to come.
For no apparent reason, Ghost felt a wave of annoyance in his heart. So, he took the initiative to interrupt Barry and ended the conversation.
"-Shh, stop it, Barry. Just accept it."
Ghost said softly, then took a step forward.
Barry screamed in horror. Although he hadn't been hurt yet, he was already in pain as if he had been disembowelled. Irritating tears and snot crisscrossed his fat face, but the ghost remained indifferent and continued to walk forward.
"No, please, don't..." Barry whimpered. "I really don't want to, I really don't want to..."
The ghost stopped where he was and stared at him for a while.
Khalil was right, he thought.
They really cry and look repentant.
'But we cannot forgive them. We are not qualified to forgive the victims. '
Ghost stepped forward, stretched out his right hand, and lifted Barry's chin.
"Don't cry, Barry," the ghost said softly. "Crying is a human privilege, and you are not."
There was rain outside the window and it started to pour.
