“When you left to kill Scorpion, I expected you to return with his head,” Izabella commented. “Instead, you’re carrying an unconscious girl in your arms. Should I be worried?”

“Shuddup,” Viers curtly replied. He had informed her that Scorpion managed to slip away. “Your condition?”

“Nothing major. I just thought this would be a lot more… difficult,” Izabella contemplated. She had killed people before but never from the same side as her. She chose to betray the Blood Church and it wasn't a light decision for her to make. “Enough about me. Weren't there some uninvited guests coming your way?”

“I scared them away,” Viers spat on the ground. “Annoying bastards.”

“So… Phase 3?”

“Phase 3,” Viers nodded. “You go back first, I need to loot these corpses… and bring this with you.”

He handed Sakuya to Izabella.

The plan consisted of three steps. He kept it simple because the more convoluted a villainous plan was, the more likely it would fail. Something he learned from the Fables.

Phase 1, make both cults fight each other.

Phase 2, neutralize both sides, prime targets: Green Scorpion and Lord Ultimate.

Scorpion managed to escape because of unforeseen interventions but 80% of the objective had been achieved.

Phase 3, Take over the settlement of both sides.

Viers cast away his settlement and now usurped a new one.

“If you want something done right, steal it from someone who did.”

When they concocted their plot, Viers gave Izabella these words of wisdom from a certain Dread Emperor.

“Do you have more words of wisdom from these ‘Dread Emperors and Empresses’?” Clarissa was piqued.

“Oh, lots. Such as this: With great madness comes great possibility.”

***

The Blood Church’s settlement was a merger of its members and their settlements. With Izabella as the sole survivor, she naturally became the owner of the camp.

Gardeners of Perfection’s settlement still had an owner so it wasn't ripe for the taking. In an ideal world, Viers would have absorbed the settlement and joined it with Izabella’s but he couldn't. He settled for less: to inflict as much damage as he could before Scorpion returned.

Viers’ ‘Smash’ was almost as strong as the Vortex Nova that defeated Alan. Scorpion’s survival was unexpected. Perhaps he had a lifesaving item or some sort of ability to stem the damage. But his injury was not light and he should be undergoing emergency treatment.

If Scorpion was already there then Viers would have called off the attack but he wasn't. Viers slipped through the perimeter defenses, killed as many NPCs as he could and destroyed the important buildings. After an hour of sowing destruction, he left. It was never good to overplay one’s hand. The losses on Scorpion’s side were substantial.

But just as what he could do unto others, others could do the same unto him. When he returned to the Blood Church’s settlement, it was under attack by Dark Zero and a few others. Jaime and Izabella were precariously defending despite their less than optimal health. The defensive measures and settlement buffs helped somewhat but they were losing ground.

Dark Zero was the one that Viers kicked out of the top 10 during Stage 1 of the Book World. He naturally had a grudge against Viers.

Viers rampaged on the attacker's ranks like a wolf among sheep. When the tide turned, Dark Zero sounded the retreat.

Viers chugged a vial of blue colloid to replenish his Victa. His Victa consumption was considerable. After Stage 1, Aletro no longer gave them MP potions. Viers only had two vials of blue colloid left. Thankfully, he had a dozen pink colloid vials. The effect was less than the blue ones but it was still very precious.

Always looting the people he killed paid off.

Well, Dark Z Volod… I will have my revenge for your revenge. Just you wait.

After intense battles, a period of recuperation followed. Viers made the Blood Church’s settlement into his home until Stage 3 was over. Izabella transferred the ownership to him.

***

Since the first time he had met Sakuya in the Book World, she always had a form of melancholy hidden in her expression. Now, it looked as if she was hollowed out from the inside out.

Sakuya was sitting on a bed, staring vacantly at the wall.

Kaari or Izabella had changed her fight garment after it had gotten dirty during the fight, a white tunic akin to what patients wore in hospitals. Kaari had applied some healing in the past two days. The NPC assistants were very versatile.

Viers visited carrying two cups of warm herbal tea. He wordlessly offered one to her and stayed in that position for a whole minute because Sakuya was unresponsive. He then placed one cup in her hand and sat on a chair. Facing the same wall Sakuya stared at and started sipping his tea in silence.

Time drifted at a glacial pace.

“...Why haven't you killed me?” Sakuya finally said something in a weak voice.

“I reserve my judgment until I hear your story.”

“...Story?”

“Each and every life is a story. You may begin when you are ready.”

“...I might still kill you, Tanael-san...”

“Talk, and I will listen,” Viers responded.

The quiet that followed was unlike the stagnant stillness of before. This one felt like the pause before the exhale. Slowly, Sakuya put the rim of the cup to her lips, drinking the herbal brew.

“My ancestor… came from a continent in the far east. What I didn't tell you before is that he was an exile.”

“Sakaki was a shinobi, a chuunin that failed a mission of importance and was exiled as punishment. He was ambitious, wanting to do great deeds that would be told among the ages. Since he couldn't succeed in the eastern continent, he tried his luck in this continent. Using his skills as a shinobi, he found success. People whispered the name of a fearsome assassin.”

“One day, Sakaki took a job to kill a person. It was a woman, a saintess from a certain religious organization. She came from a bloodline that had been nurtured carefully for a hundred generations. Sakaki… fell in love with her. A shinobi’s mission is sacred. We will accomplish the mission at all costs. That is our commitment and honor. And yet my ancestor broke the shinobi’s code, for love.”

“In time, the woman returned Sakaki’s feelings but their union was not so readily approved. One was a killer vagrant while the other was a saintess of the highest importance. As a test, the people of the religious organization gave Sakaki one hundred missions. They gave him impossible tasks fully expecting him to die midway. But Sakaki succeeded.”

“The leader of the religious organization at the time, the woman’s father, could not allow the main bloodline to be mixed with someone so detached from the order so he gave another condition to Sakaki: to accept the Flaring Wither Curse. He and his descendants will not be able to live past one hundred years, just like normal people even if they are Pathseekers. In addition, every descendant of Sakaki must accomplish one task from the order or the curse will activate.”

“Sakaki accepted these conditions. A shinobi’s life expectancy was always short. He became the killing blade of that religious organization, showing the worth of his shinobi skills before passing his way of life to his descendants. This was the origin of the Sakaki clan... my clan.”

“To put it simply, the Flaring Wither Curse is a shackle in my bloodline. It was said that pain would flare up as our joy of living withered, until we felt nothing but suffering in our existence. If a Sakaki descendant is unable or fails to do their one mission, the curse would punish us all. The young and the old without distinction. Therefore the whole clan would band together to complete the mission. In the clan records, there were many times when the curse was activated. The worst incident lasted for eight years… They said-”

Sakuya paused. Shoulders trembling as her face turned as white as a sheet.

“-Mothers killed their babies to spare them from suffering.”

Sakuya sobbed, crumbled by the guilt of what suffering she might have inflicted on her own family. Viers remained still, not saying a thing.

“After a century, fed up with the killing and death of his clansmen, the third head led the clan to live in an isolated region in the already remote Zamrud Archipelago, away from the religious organization. Some people from the continent of the east sometimes drifted there and a village was created. To prevent them from compelling us to do a mission, those possessing the blood of Sakaki were forbidden to visit the continent… And then there’s me.”

“My father, the sixth head, was sick. Asteyule Herb is needed to cure him. ‘Don't mind it’, he said to me. ‘I only have two decades to live anyway,’ my father told me… And now I have not only doomed my father but my entire clan.”

Sakuya put her hand on her chest.

“I can feel the curse is already activated inside me… It will be slight and faint at first, growing in frequency and intensity as time goes by. Even if I don't kill you, others will come for you, Tanael-san. My uncles, my cousins… To them, it is your life or their entire world.”

After telling her story. Sakuya hung her head, as if offering her neck to the executioner’s ax. She could hear Viers rise from his seat. She was already prepared for a visit to Hell. For surely a woman as vile as she would have no place in Heaven.

Instead, she felt a strong hand on her shoulder, like a hand of salvation.

“ALETRO!” Viers shouted.

“–What?”

A mask appeared and Black Aletro’s voice came from it.

“You hear that?”

“Obviously,” Aletro said in a drawl.

“Is this curse too difficult for you?”

“Hmph! Who do you think you’re talking to?”

Sakuya was astounded by Viers casual conversation with a being such as Aletro.

“So speak the price,” Viers demanded.

“500,000 shards. If the girl survives Stage 5, she can buy the method of curse removal from me.”

“A simple matter,” Viers replied without a hint of doubt.

“Eh? Eh? Wh-” Sakuya’s mind couldn’t process what was happening.

“You were so deep in your thoughts that you couldn't see that the answer was right in front of you all along. Now tell me about your father’s sickness.”

Sakuya didn't answer, still steadying her mind after a world-shaking revelation.

“C’mon! Hurry up!”

“H-Haiii!” Sakuya mewled like a startled squirrel.

After hearing the details of the father’s sickness and symptoms, Viers wrote something on a patch of paper and took out something from his Casket.

“Follow these instructions and give it to your father. The remaining ingredients are pretty easy to find. Your father will be right as rain.”

“Th-this is—!”

Viers gave a medicine recipe to Sakuya. The main ingredient was the Grey Mandarin, the fruit he got from Pecan Village.

Sakuya trembled as the implication hit her. The dark clouds in her mind turned into clear skies in an instant, reversing jet black despair with shining hope.

“B-but I tried to kill you,” she stuttered.

“Bah. You're a thousand years too early before you could kill me.”

Was Viers really at the edge of death during their fight? Perhaps he was, there were a lot of wondrous techniques in this world. Sakuya might really be able to bloom her Flowers of Desolation from the inside of his body but Viers was ready to transform into a monster should that ever happen.

When he transformed into a monster, the condition of his human form had no meaning whatsoever; every Viers’ form had different HP pools and existed separately.

Would the flowers really matter whether they bloomed or not when Viers’ body consists of toxic liquid such as Toxicell Slime?

She didn't really try to kill him in the Senbon Torii illusion world and didn't use her deadliest poison. When they were traveling in the wilds, she had a few opportunities to ambush Viers or kill Kaari but stayed her hand. All in all, she pointed a gun at Viers but she didn't pull the trigger. One of the reasons Viers didn't kill Sakuya.

How did Viers know about this? How did Viers know the medicine prescription for Sakuya’s father? Had he become a divine doctor like so many xianxia MCs out there?

Soul search!

As with Jaime, Viers soul-searched Sakuya when she was unconscious. Viers already knew her story before she told him from the start! Viers knew everything about Sakuya. Everything! From her weaknesses to her strengths, her way of thinking, the secrets she buried, the most embarrassing moments of her life, Viers knew them all!

Privacy?

What was that?

Against other people Viers would have killed them without feeling guilty whatsoever, Sakuya was already given special treatment.

Knowing ahead of time gave Viers the time to make various considerations and preparations.

A guy that he killed had a mother that suffered the same sickness as Sakuya’s father. A doctor made medicine with the Grey Mandarin to cure her. The guy was the one who procured the ingredients, watching intently as the doctor made the medicine.

Soul search is OVERPOWERED!

Viers realized the technique’s potential years before he arrived in this world of might and magic. He squeezed its worth to the fullest.

Two of the three Chekhov's guns from back then have served their purpose. The last is the mysterious grimoire. I wonder when it will matter.

“This is… Truly… Arigatou gozaimasu! Hggh uaaaahhh–” Sakuya cried in joy, cradling the fruit and paper as if it was the most precious thing in the world. “I'm sorry! I’m sorry for attacking you. And-and thank you so, so much– Uuuhh uwaaaahhh–”

Sakuya cried her heart out, beads of tears dropped on the bedsheets.

“Heh, gratitude or apology, pick one you idiot,” Viers smiled and left the room after saying what he wanted to say. Sakuya needed some time alone. His steps were light, reflecting his good mood.

As Viers walked, the shadow from the moonlight colored half of his face with darkness.

“You’re giving them to her for free? I thought you would impose a more severe hold on her, after she tried to kill you and everything... Very lenient by your standard.”

“Paina, I don't need to do anything,” Veirs calmly responded, smiling faintly. “She already tied herself to my chariot using a rope called love.”

In her case, is it the red string of fate?

Viers leisurely walked in a settlement that belonged to his enemy in the middle of the night for his next objective. Time was precious and Viers had a lot of things to do.

“Let’s wrap up Stage 3, shall we?”