Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Punishment, Samsara?

“Next time I come to the snowy mountains, I’d better not drive…”

Driving a motorcycle on the soft snow was purely asking for trouble.

In the end, with no other choice, Ye Qiyan simply had the Raven Demon push the vehicle from behind.

After taking almost an hour, they finally returned to the third supply station.

The wind and snow continued as before.

Outside the third supply station, the corpses of those snow monsters had disappeared at some point.

The gate was tightly shut, and wisps of cooking smoke drifted gently from the chimney.

He kicked open the gate.

The three-headed fused human was cowering in the corner, and upon seeing his arrival, it was instantly overjoyed.

“Lord! Lord Exorcist! Can you lift our curse!?”

Ye Qiyan did not speak, his gaze sweeping across every corner of the room.

When he inadvertently glanced at the pitch-black fireplace, he narrowed his eyes slightly.

Come to think of it, beneath the chimney with smoke, the fireplace wasn’t actually lit.

Is this reasonable?

This is not reasonable.

“This is the place.”

Switching to the bullets of Ebony, the white explosive warhead blew the fireplace into fragments.

The wind and snow outside instantly surged into the wooden cabin through the gap.

And inside that destroyed fireplace.

A skull exuding a faint black aura unexpectedly let out a human voice.

“Why must you investigate it clearly?”

“Ah! A demon, it’s a demon!”

“No, wait, wait a minute, this voice, is it the Guide’s voice? No, and it sounds a bit like my younger brother?”

“Your younger brother is the demon!”

Ye Qiyan ignored the three-headed fused human; the pure purification stone on his body was already heating up.

This is an evil entity.

“Are you the Guide?”

“Or his younger brother?”

The skull nodded humanly.

“I am all of them. I am the Guide, his younger brother, and the mentor they ate first. I am also everyone else, except the three of them.”

Well, well, an unexpected harvest.

Ye Qiyan raised an eyebrow.

Watching the skull with great interest, he tightened the pure purification stone against his body a bit more and continued to signal the skull to go on.

“What do you mean by that?”

Within the skull’s pitch-black eye sockets, a gaze of deep hatred inexplicably swept toward those three.

“From beginning to end, the only ones who ate people were those three.”

The skull recounted another version of the story.

“There were fifteen people in the scientific expedition team, sixteen counting the Guide. We climbed the peak, wanting to find a certain secret existing in legend that could lead to that other world. Unexpectedly, heavy snow sealed the mountains, leaving us no way to leave, so we could only live in the second supply station.”

“We originally thought we could live in the supply station for a while, but what none of us expected was that one night, someone secretly ate the remaining food, causing the supplies that could originally support two weeks to suddenly become like this. We had no food and no path down the mountain. I am the Guide, and to find a way down the mountain, I stepped into the wind and snow alone, and then… when I returned to this supply station again, everyone had already been eaten by these three devils!”

“Devils?”

Ye Qiyan silently sized up the floating skull.

And silently looked at the three-headed human body.

Speaking of demons, these two seem to have no real difference.

Both are terrifying enough.

“Don’t, don’t listen to his nonsense! How, how could we not remember such a thing!”

“Right, my lord, this is just a monster! Hurry up and kill him! Don’t let him talk nonsense!”

“We didn’t proactively eat people, really!”

The three heads spoke one after another, their noisy dialogue making one rather unpleased even amidst this wind and snow.

That skull let out a cold sneer.

It opened its pitch-black mouth wide.

“Of course you don’t remember, because this is the forty-seventh time you have experienced this matter. After all of us were eaten by you, our grievances merged together to become me. I grabbed you, controlled the madman from the other world, and made you live on in this appearance! This is a punishment!”

Oh ho.

So that’s how it is.

Therefore, that man who thought he controlled this world was actually just a marionette?

What a pathetic fellow.

“Bastard! You are lying to us!”

The three-headed fused human seemed to have been pressed by some switch, as past memories continuously flooded into their minds.

“Dammit, dammit dammit dammit! Why won’t you let us go! Clearly we just, just ate you all! We had no other choice!”

The body of the three-headed human continuously twisted.

That skull let out eerie creaking laughter.

It floated into mid-air, looking down at Ye Qiyan and the three-headed human below.

“outsiders like you have appeared more than once. Unfortunately, you are the only one who insists on breaking the cycle. In that case, the cycle begins. This time, with you added, become the new nourishment in this constantly repeating world.”

The skull looked as though it was about to fly away.

However, the Raven’s claws grabbed it at this moment.

The Raven Demon appeared overhead, letting out a cackling screech.

“No?! Let me go! Ah!”

Pitch-black smoke swept toward the Raven Demon’s body.

But what it was facing was a “demon.”

Such petty tricks had no meaning at all.

“You’re overthinking it. I never said anything about breaking any cycle.”

Ye Qiyan smiled slightly, and the muzzle of the Ebony in his hand began to gather dual-colored light of black and white.

Simultaneously consuming 10 points of Stamina and 10 points of Mental Power, he condensed a black-and-white dual-colored armor-piercing explosive bullet.

Taking aim at the completely deranged three-headed fused human whose body was tearing apart.

He pulled the trigger.

“However, if some cycle must be broken and something must be destroyed, it should be them.”

Bang——!!

The gunshot rang out.

The wind and snow in the sky suddenly stagnated.

The body of that three-headed human was blown into smithereens.

Various parts of its lower body were blown into the air and continuously fell down.

The Raven Demon spread its wings, blocking this disgusting rain of flesh and blood for Ye Qiyan.

Beneath its feet, that black skull let out an angry howl.

“How dare you! How dare you kill them! Their punishment has not yet ended! Hypocritical person! What right do you have to forgive them on our behalf!”

“Forgive? You’re overthinking it.”

Ye Qiyan blew out the wisps of smoke from the muzzle, took out the pure purification stone, and a faint arc curved at the corner of his mouth.

“I just wanted to kill them, and I also want to kill you, because only in this way can I be considered to have completed the mission of this station. The matters between you have nothing to do with me.”

The light emanated.

The instant it touched the black aura, the skull let out an even more painful wail.

“Ah!”

One, two, three…

Dozens of fragmented human-like souls were liberated from this black aura.

Their grievances gathered together, although meant to punish those three.

But… how was this not also punishing themselves?

Between the punisher and the punished, which party was the one truly trapped?

“Done. With this, the mission is completely finished, right?”