Chapter 544 - 14: Take One Strike From Me, and You Are Qualified
"Just now..." Murphy began, but the words died on his lips.
His gaze snapped behind him.
However, the sight that met his eyes sent a flicker through his dark pupils.
The ravine was gone.
The fire was gone.
The toppled, burning giant trees were gone.
Even the scorching heat and the acrid smell of smoke had vanished from the air.
The scene behind him had completely changed.
Soft moonlight spilled down, illuminating a quiet forest clearing. Sparse trees, flat grassland... This was clearly the area he had been walking through before he ventured deeper into the forest and encountered the little girl.
Murphy whipped his head back around to look at where the little girl was.
The scenery there had changed as well.
It was no longer the clearing affected by his sword light that he had just seen, but the one he had faced when he first heard the little girl’s voice and turned around.
Even the angle of the moonlight and the silhouettes of the trees’ shadows were almost identical.
It was as if, in the brief moment he had turned to speak with the girl, the spaces before and behind him had silently swapped and reset themselves.
That previous earth-shattering sword strike, along with all the destruction it had caused, had been completely erased, as if it had never happened.
Everything was back to square one.
Murphy’s gaze fell back on the little girl’s face. Her delicate features were still filled with innocent anticipation, seemingly oblivious to his fleeting change in expression and the shift in their surroundings.
"It’s nothing..." Murphy’s voice was calm.
Hearing this, the little girl’s face immediately bloomed into a sweet, radiant smile, as if she completely believed him.
She once again extended her small hand, offering it forward, her jade-green eyes gleaming with eagerness. "So, Mister, can you come with me to see my flower now? It’s really, really pretty!"
Murphy looked at her and nodded. "I can. But before that... if you can take one more strike from me, you’ll have earned the right to lead the way."
The instant his last word fell, a crimson sword light—far more condensed, more incandescent, and more terrifying than the last—erupted into existence.
Like a bolt of crimson Thunder tearing the sky asunder, it slashed down once more at the little girl just three paces away!
...
「New Realm.」
In another corner of the city, far from the more respectable districts, deep within a complex, labyrinthine network of pipes.
The stench here was even more potent and complex than in the main sewer tunnels.
It was a mix of the sharp stench of long-accumulated, fermenting excrement, a damp, musty odor, the acrid tang of some chemical waste, and a nauseating smell like flesh that had rotted and then been steeped in warm water.
A warm, viscous, murky yellow liquid flowed underfoot, continuously seeping from a broken pipe high above, meandering down a sloping channel before merging into the darkness below.
This warm water kept this section of the pipeline uncomfortably hot and humid, but it was also the reason certain vagrants treasured the area.
In the bone-chilling world of the sewers, a stable heat source meant the hope of survival—it meant not freezing to death in your sleep.
For that very reason, this area was what you might call prime, fiercely contested real estate.
It was perpetually occupied by several small gangs of vagrants, either in rotation or jointly.
Bloody conflicts often erupted over the right to live in or share this territory.
At this moment, Uncle Scar and Ron were huddled on a relatively dry concrete platform, raised slightly above the water level.
The platform wasn’t large, barely big enough for the two of them to lie down. It was enclosed by a circle of scavenged broken planks, rotten cloth, and rusted sheet metal that served as crude "walls" and a "door," offering a meager barrier against the foul air outside.
This spot, naturally, was one they had just fought for.
The process hadn’t been complicated. When Uncle Scar and Ron arrived with Murphy—or rather, when Murphy’s immaculate black robes appeared in this filthy place—the vagrants occupying the spot immediately showed fear in their eyes.
In a world where even cleanliness was a luxury, a being who could remain absolutely pristine in such an environment was, by definition, "different." It meant "important." It meant "not to be trifled with."
They didn’t even dare a second glance at Murphy. Spurred on by Uncle Scar’s fierce glare and Ron’s borrowed bravado, they silently took their leave.
An oil lamp had been lit. Its dim yellow halo dispelled a small patch of darkness on the platform and illuminated the side of Uncle Scar’s face, which was twitching slightly from pain.
His injured arm was still in a sling made from a dirty strip of cloth, which was soaked with blackened blood and grime.
"Hiss—" Uncle Scar suddenly sucked in a sharp breath. A fine sheen of cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he instinctively clutched his injured right arm with his left hand.
"Uncle Scar!" Ron hurried closer, his face etched with concern. "Your arm... Are you okay? Should we re-bandage it?"
"I’m fine. Not gonna die," Uncle Scar ground out through clenched teeth. He tried to sit up straight, but the movement sent another jolt of agony through his injury, making his face turn even paler.
He fumbled inside his clothes and pulled out a white plastic bottle. With one hand, he struggled to twist off the cap, shook out a small white pill, and tossed it into his mouth without a second look, swallowing it dry.
Only seconds after the pill went down his throat, his tense body visibly relaxed. His breathing evened out, and the cold sweat on his forehead seemed to stop beading.