I Will Teach You How to Hunt Gods

Chapter 617 171: Divine Benediction

"If we had a choice, we wouldn't want to add to the killing either. But we don't. Because there's only one way to extract that kind of Initial Sequence—killing, taking other people's lives."

"Only that way can our superiors draw out the power of that Initial Sequence."

"Cough… cough…"

As he spoke, Shen Ye coughed heavily twice more. The black light inside his organs was growing denser. It still wasn't enough to take his life in a short time, but it was already starting to affect his ability to speak.

"Is there really no other way?"

Yun You lowered her head and muttered, "Aside from killing, is there truly no other method at all?"

"Or is it just that you people don't want to go looking for another answer?"

Shen Ye gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

"You've misunderstood us, Miss Wu Ming."

"It's true there's a group among us whose temperament is vile, whose methods are cruel, who delight in slaughter. But those people are by no means all of us. What's more, even if we are Apprentice Death Gods, beings who transcend the mundane, we still have to abide by certain agreements in Nest City, such as the 'Order of Non-Belligerence' and so on."

"Killing one or two mortals might not bring any consequence. Massacring a small village or a town might earn you some punishment from the Organization, but even then you still won't suffer any substantial harm."

"But that night, the entire Lower City district was wiped out… hundreds of thousands died an unnatural death. Carrying that kind of blood debt, even an Apprentice Death God would be settled with sooner or later."

"Yet in the end, no one came after us. Isn't that because the Organization knew we had no choice that day?"

At this point, Shen Ye spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm and said with a trace of self-mockery, "To think that when I was a child I swore I'd work for the welfare of the people at the bottom. But in the end, I became the executioner who took their lives. The only thing I could do… was to kill them as cleanly and swiftly as possible, to lessen their suffering as much as I could."

"…"

Yun You fell silent.

In that moment, she finally understood why, on that slaughter-filled night, Yang Lie and Hikamu had looked so exhilarated, endlessly butchering civilians with all manner of cruel means, while Shen Ye's face had been full of melancholy and helplessness even as he fought to kill more people.

So… he'd been trying to free them, to spare them from Hikamu and Yang Lie's abuse.

Yun You suddenly felt that the world was absurd beyond belief, forcing those who carried ideals in their hearts to do things they never wanted to do, making them trample their own bottom lines again and again, while letting the scum who had long since discarded their humanity enjoy everything good.

She instantly understood Old Jin's thinking.

This deformed society is sick. It has to change.

"In short, that night's massacre was, in essence, the sin we had no choice but to commit in order to collect the Initial Sequence."

Shen Ye rested for a long time before finally picking up the thread of his tale again.

"There are several different kinds of Initial Sequences, but the one taken from your hometown that day was a fairly special type, called—Celestial Ku Blessing."

"It has no form, no shape, doesn't exist in any dead matter, but instead parasitizes the bodies of mortals, experiencing the warmth and coldness, the good and evil of this world alongside them, tempering itself constantly in the mortal realm, and ultimately ascending into an emperor and leader."

"So to put it another way, all the commoners in your region were born with a natural portion of Celestial Ku Blessing in their bodies. It's just that the amount in a single person is far too little, and the slums can't produce many Apprentice Death Gods, so there was no way to make use of those Initial Sequences. That's why you all seemed no different from any other ordinary people."

"What we did was use slaughter; in taking those civilians' lives, we created an opportunity for our superiors to gather Celestial Ku Blessing. That's why I said earlier that massacre had nothing to do with class."

"Where Celestial Ku Blessing appears is entirely random. If it falls in the slums, we can only act in the slums. If it falls in the rich districts, the Death God Organization will still make its move all the same. You… were just a bit unlucky, that's all."

Yun You gently bit her teeth together and nodded silently.

"So that's how it is…"

There was still a fire smoldering in her chest, but at least she'd figured everything out.

It was just that she still didn't fully understand this so-called "Celestial Ku Blessing."

Since it's a blessing, aside from allowing a Tier Six Apprentice Death God to break through to Tier Seven, does it have any other effects?

"Wait…"

As she was thinking, Yun You suddenly widened her eyes, something occurring to her.

She herself possessed an unprecedented three Sequences, and aside from the Mad Dog Sequence, the other two were both extremely rare "Special Sequences."

Especially the "Lord" Sequence, so rare that there was no relevant information at all on the Death God website; even Old Jin had been astonished.

Because of that, when she'd used the "Lord" Sequence Ability before, not a single opponent had been able to recognize it.

Could it be that the source of the "Lord" Sequence and the other two Sequences was this so-called "Celestial Ku Blessing"?

Yun You felt it was possible. That would neatly explain the origin of her three Sequences.

As for whether Red Scale and the [Eating] Ability also came from Celestial Ku Blessing… that, Yun You still couldn't be sure of.

But thinking along those lines, Yun You recalled another item that people coveted and fought over just as fiercely.

Saint's Remains.