The Vanishing Arcane Artifacts: Part Two

His gaze swept across the battlefield, selecting a clustered horde of The Undead, numbering approximately seven or eight hundred. "Vanishing Snow Burial of Petals!" he intoned, his sword humming softly as his white-robed figure descended from the heavens! A snow lotus manifested, and The Undead froze in their tracks, millions of petals dancing down like a blizzard of ice and snow. In the blink of an eye, those seven or eight hundred Undead erupted into a cacophony of 'crackling' ice shards, detonating utterly!

"Ramepatisu!" Deboning, who had just emerged from the Precious Lotus Scripture, exclaimed in shock. "The Young Master can now acquire a title!"

"Heavens!? Did I truly do this!?" Du Chen stared in disbelief at the seven or eight hundred fallen Undead around him, his heart pounding wildly!

Staring at the longsword in his hand, he meticulously recalled the events that had just transpired. The Burial of Petals style was meant to freeze opponents with snow lotus-shaped ice, then shatter them—ice and all—with fire-elemental power channeled from the Third Trigram. The principle was simple, and the technique's power had never been particularly astonishing; in fact, Du Chen had already abandoned this move after secretly learning and enhancing Brockman's Secret Technique!

But now it possessed such might! And enough to strike nearly a thousand Undead? How much had his inner strength truly been enhanced!?

Du Chen rejoiced, the frustration of the Arcane Artifacts' disappearance largely dissipating. He looked around, searching for his next opponent!

Following Du Chen's gaze, the remaining Undead retreated one after another, a flicker of fear—no, more than a flicker—appearing in their eerie eyes. They scattered and fled in a thunderous panic! "Damn it, who is this guy? His aura is like a demon come to claim our lives!"

"Quick, run for your lives!"

The Undead wanted to flee, but Du Chen wouldn't let go of this Merit! He casually picked out the slowest one, soaring to land directly in front of it. Upon seeing the Undead's appearance, he couldn't help but crack a smile. This fellow really did look a bit ridiculous!

Before him stood a towering bear-kin beastman. From his robust muscles and relatively intact armor, it was clear this Undead had not been dead long, perhaps an officer among the beastmen who fell during the Star River victory. However, a large bite mark marred his neck, and the remaining half could not support his massive head. He was forced to cradle his head in his arms, running while constantly adjusting its position to see the path ahead.

Because of this peculiar posture, he was always half a beat slower than others when trying to escape!

Indeed, this was the Undead officer who had spearheaded the chaos, Droopy-Head Bill! His luck had been surprisingly good, managing to survive until now.

Du Chen offered a faint smile, pointing his sword at Bill. "Sir, do you intend to run out and prey on the common folk? You died in battle, a hero among beastmen; you shouldn't become a demon harming your own kind, don't you agree?"

Bill stared in terror at Du Chen's longsword, retreating step by step. *Thump*, he stumbled and fell to the ground, watching Du Chen advance, pleading frantically: "No, don't kill me! Please don't!" He began to wail.

Du Chen paused, taken aback. That 'nonsense' he'd just uttered was purely for the benefit of the Grand Matriarch, who had already appeared, to subtly affirm Francis's profound sense of justice. But this Undead before him seemed… different!

Seizing Du Chen's momentary hesitation, Bill tumbled to the side with a 'gurgl,' prostrating himself and pleading, "Don't, don't kill me! I… I just came back to life, I don't want to die!" He shook his head, kowtowing incoherently. "You, you've already slain a hundred thousand of my kin, please, spare me, consider it a good deed, alright? I beg you…"

Du Chen gave a wry chuckle. "Interesting! But I'm sorry, my killing you *is* the good deed!"

The sword tip pierced Bill's chest.

At that moment, in the eyes of both Bill and the fleeing Undead who dared to glance back, Du Chen was nothing short of a true demon!

Knowing death was inevitable, Bill abandoned all hope, his mind growing disordered as he shrieked madly, "Good deed? Your mother's good deed! We are lives too! A hundred thousand – you slaughtered a hundred thousand of my kin and still call it a good deed!? Bah!"

Du Chen's sword tip halted, stopping two inches deep in Bill's chest. This depth was insufficient to pierce the sturdy muscles of a bear-kin Undead!

Killing a hundred thousand lives counts as a good deed? The thought flashed through Du Chen's mind, but he immediately scoffed. The system had already recognized this as a good deed, and he had already received the Merit. What was there to doubt?

Yet, a strange feeling suddenly welled up within Du Chen's heart.

He seemed to be spouting nonsense to Bill, yet also searching for an undeniable justification for his own actions, as he roared, "Why is it not a good deed? You hungrily devour humans, yet those bitten by you also transform into devils just like yourselves! As long as you appear before common folk, it is a great catastrophe! Based on that, is killing you wrong?"

"That's human bullshit!" Bill roared back. "Can't we eat when we're hungry? We are The Undead, we also want to live! But we can only consume human flesh and blood…"

He suddenly flung his head up, staring at Du Chen. "Those bitten by us turn into The Undead, but is that our fault? Is it what *we* want? If we don't bite them, the feeling of hunger will drive us mad!"

From unknown depths, Droopy-Head Bill found a surge of courage and suddenly grabbed Du Chen's sword edge. "When you humans are hungry and eat corpses, it's called 'having no choice,' but when we Undead are hungry and eat humans, we're devils! You kill me based on this, and still prattle on about 'good deeds,' damn you! Come on, kill me! You've already slaughtered a hundred thousand of my kin, what's one more life to you? Come on!"

His tilted head wore a ferocious expression; Bill seemed to have gone mad, yet Du Chen found himself momentarily unable to strike!

Droopy-Head Bill was spouting obscenities, yet his words were deafeningly insightful. Du Chen's mind reeled: humans eating corpses in desperation was 'unavoidable,' but Undead eating humans meant 'they deserved death.' Then… did The Undead truly deserve to die?

This world of Divine Authority couldn't possibly provide Du Chen with an answer. He struggled to recall his increasingly faded past-life memories, forcing himself to hum, "Survival of the fittest, you and humans are natural enemies…"

It was uncertain if Droopy-Head Bill understood the concepts of evolution, but he seemed to grasp some part of it. "Yes, you are human. You kill us and become a great hero among humans, performing a great good deed for humanity. So kill away! Hmph, but mark my words, one day, my kin will also kill you, and then, the Undead who slays you will be a great hero for our race, performing a great good deed for countless Undead!"

With that, Bill abruptly straightened his body, and with a 'squelch,' he violently impaled himself on the sword tip, dissolving into a wisp of black smoke under the force of Du Chen's inner strength…

Du Chen stood frozen, staring silently at the wisp of black smoke.

Yes, it seemed that for a long time, he had been performing 'good deeds' for humanity, or rather, for the race he identified with! But to these Undead, and even the Merfolk of the past, was he not merely a butcher?

He was human, and there was nothing wrong with doing good deeds for humans. But was Master Grape, that old man, truly human in the same way? In his eyes, what difference was there between humans and ants, or The Undead?

Du Chen seemed to understand something, activating his Divine Sense and speaking with suppressed emotion: "Dus, do you remember when my Arcane Artifacts started disappearing?"

Dus clearly hadn't grasped why Du Chen would suddenly ask this. After a long pause, he replied, "The first to vanish was the Twelfth-Floor Assistant; it bloomed and disappeared when you were healing Lanning's wounded soldiers!"

"And when did the Twelfth-Floor Assistant begin to bloom?"

"The Twelfth-Floor Assistant… that was the first lotus of the Fourth Trigram, and it began to bloom after you slaughtered a hundred thousand Merfolk."

Du Chen smiled bitterly, an inexplicable pain in his heart. "It seems I was wrong, we were all wrong! The Merfolk rampaging along Lanning's coast was merely because there was enough food for them to survive, and their attacks on my people were spurred by the Fiendkind, desiring only to reclaim the Holy Relic they worship—it was their survival instinct as low-intelligence beasts… Dus, if you were a Merfolk, how would you see me?"

Dus answered without hesitation, "In the eyes of the Merfolk, you would undoubtedly be a complete demon, an unforgivable scoundrel! They would certainly dream of devouring you whole!"

Du Chen gave a bitter laugh. "Yes, my slaughter of a hundred thousand Merfolk was indeed a great good deed for humanity, but for the Merfolk… it was a catastrophe! And it was from that moment on that this 'Merit'—which is a good deed for humans but a disaster for other races—could only bring progress to my inner strength and Primordial Spirit, while my Arcane Artifacts, however, went missing…"

"This… I don't understand!" Dus said, hesitating.

"Nor do I!"

Dus pondered for a moment. "The key is how to get those Arcane Artifacts back!"

Du Chen violently shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "I still don't know what to do right now, but one thing is clear: Uncle Orbach's great revenge remains unavenged!"

His gaze shifted from confusion to sharpness. "Good deeds can be set aside, but my foster father's vendetta, I *will* avenge! Dus, you, the two ladies, and the two children are to remain on the Lotus Pedestal, continuing to impersonate Du Chen, the Divine, and clean up this mess for me. Tell Deboning and Andy to come with me to slay the Fiendkind!"

With that, he leaped through the hole blasted open by Bonis and entered the Labyrinth of Life!

A voice called out to him. Du Chen turned his head to see the short, stout Tyr flying towards him.

"Tyr, why are you here?"

"Bonis has already appeared in the Grand Chasm, and His Holiness the Pontiff no longer requires my services!" Tyr landed beside Du Chen and stood firm, staring intently at the labyrinth's entrance. "And my child is still in the hands of the Fiendkind, still calling that Brockman 'Father'!"

Clenching his fists, Tyr's ears suddenly expanded tens of times over, transforming into two wings, while his body shrunk into a ball of flesh, flying alongside Du Chen. "I'll go down with you. Within a thousand *li*, not a single person or object can escape my soul-lock!"