Chapter 74

If the Preacher had remained calm before, now he was panicking.

The power of the Archon residue was his primary means of attack and his greatest advantage.

The reason he hadn't been discarded by the Doctor, besides being one of the first to defect to Snezhnaya, was because he willingly accepted the injection of Archon residue.

But now… that power had vanished.

His first concern wasn't whether he would die here because he was certain the Harbinger wouldn't let the girl kill him.

His real worry was whether his powers were gone forever—and if the Doctor would discard him because of it.

He knew all too well how the Doctor treated failures.

Barely dodging the boulder Collei had pushed, the Preacher used the brief moment she spent preparing another one to scramble back up the cliff.

But when he reached the top, Collei had disappeared.

This made him immediately alert. He didn't believe she had run away—she was likely hiding, waiting to strike...

"Hiss—"

A cold sensation spread across his lower back, quickly followed by a searing pain that pierced deep into his core.

Clenching his teeth to suppress a scream, the Preacher swung his blade behind him—but hit nothing.

He had forgotten one crucial thing: Collei wasn't an adult. She was just a child.

She easily read his telegraphed moves and dodged, pulling out the dagger only to drive it into the opposite side of his waist.

"Yikes, just watching that makes my back hurt," Bai Luo muttered from the shadows, feeling an unexpected chill run down his spine.

This girl didn't hold back!

With both kidneys stabbed, the Preacher nearly blacked out from the pain. But as a former monk with a steely will, and having been strengthened by the Archon residue, he managed to cling to consciousness.

Still, he had gravely underestimated just how much Collei despised him.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss—"

The sound of machinery whirring filled the air as steel wires coiled tightly around his knees, and his already unstable stance gave way, forcing him to kneel.

Before he could rise, Collei's dagger found its mark once again, this time slicing through his Achilles tendons.

"Aaaah—!"

Even the Preacher, hardened as he was, couldn't stifle his scream.

"M-Master...Instructor!" he cried out, reaching toward Bai Luo, who sat nearby, watching impassively.

But it wasn't Bai Luo's hand that grasped his—it was Collei's bloodstained, trembling little hand.

In the Preacher's despair-filled eyes, Collei slowly and methodically sliced the tendons in his hand, ensuring that every motion was as agonizing as possible.

She was torturing him, drawing out the suffering as much as she could.

Finally realizing the truth, the Preacher understood: this was no training exercise. It was a trap from the very beginning.

"Do you remember me?" Collei asked coldly, removing the Fire Debt Collector's mask from her face.

Her face showed no emotion, but the trembling in her hands revealed her true state of mind.

"It's… it's you?!"

Of course, the Preacher remembered Collei. She had been the last subject of his experiments.

He recalled her dying in a cell, unable to withstand the power of the Archon residue.

He had even personally ordered Bai Luo to dispose of her body...

"Bai Luo!!!!!"

Finally, the Preacher realized what had happened.

Bai Luo hadn't followed his orders that day. Instead, he had secretly kept Collei alive and raised her.

"You don't deserve to speak that name!"

Collei kicked the Preacher square in the jaw, dislocating it with a sharp crack.

Then she straddled his chest, pinning him down as she raised her dagger high.

Once, twice, three times...

Flesh and blood splattered in all directions as Collei repeatedly stabbed the Preacher in the back, venting years of anger, hatred, and suffering with each strike.

Bai Luo made no move to stop her.

He knew that this wasn't something a child should have to do.

Everyone understands the logic: vengeance won't bring peace, and violence doesn't heal wounds. But some pains need to be blamed, some grievances need to be voiced, and some emotions need to be released.

A lifetime's worth of hatred and agony isn't something that reason or time alone can erase.

Time doesn't solve problems. It just makes the ordinary fade into the background, while hatred and pain only carve themselves deeper into your soul.

For others, this might seem like an overreaction. But only Collei knew just how heavy the burden she had carried for so long really was.

Perhaps this is a form of wear and tear on the soul.

No one knows how long she kept stabbing, but eventually, the Preacher's screams grew fainter, and the blade in Collei's hand became caked with dirt as it pierced his lifeless body.

"Ugh..."

Collei thought she had no more tears left to shed, believing she had cried them all out during her year of wandering.

But as she gazed at the blood-soaked, mutilated corpse before her, a wave of grief and exhaustion hit her.

"Waaaaaah—"

Throwing her head back, she cried loudly, tears streaming down her blood-streaked face and onto the Preacher's mangled body.

She had killed the Preacher, killed her past, and, in doing so, killed all the hatred within her heart.

Her cries were not just those of a child—they were the sobs of a soul reborn.

No… she was a child.

A girl forced by the world to grow up too quickly, who still loved pretty clothes, cartoon stickers, and longed for someone to rely on.

She had cut her beautiful long hair and wrapped herself in thick armor, all in a futile effort to protect herself from the cruelty of the world.

Her voice grew hoarse, her vision blurred with tears, yet she couldn't stop crying.

"Hm?"

Bai Luo, who had approached Collei, intending to take her home once she had calmed down, suddenly paused.

He sensed a shift in the air around them—particularly beneath his feet.

A faint rustling sound arose, and the blood-soaked ground beneath them began to crack.

"Could it be...?"

A smile crept across Bai Luo's face. He realized his plan had likely succeeded.

Crack.

Fractures snaked across the surface of Starsnatch Cliff, and from the ground emerged countless green sprouts, pushing aside the hardened soil as they shot upward, growing rapidly, coiling around the area.

In no time, the newly sprouted plants formed a circle around Collei.

A flower bud, heavy on its delicate stem, bent down towards her, hanging just in front of her face.

It was a Cecilia flower, the symbol of a rogue's sincerity, slowly unfurling to reveal a vibrant green gemstone nestled at its center.

Seeing that Collei was about to collapse from exhaustion, Bai Luo stepped forward and caught her in his arms.

"It's over. Let's go home."

Hearing his familiar voice, Collei gradually quieted down and drifted off to sleep.

As for Bai Luo, he glanced down at the Dendro Delusion hanging from his waist, then at the Dendro Vision that had appeared before Collei.

For a long moment, he was silent.

Finally, he muttered just one word.

"Fuck!"