142 Their Futures (Part 1)


    The Rain Moon was the fourth month of the year. The tears of the Holy Spirit, Mother, turned into rain that nourished everything, bringing life to the entire Vic Continent.


    Newborns born this month might randomly obtain the favor of the Traveler, Hunter, or Viper constetions. In William’s era, this meant that they had extraordinary talent in Storm, Frost, and Morph spells. Now, it meant that those newborns could only be allowed to practice rted spells.


    It was drizzling outside. William raised his hand and lifted the curtain in front of the window. He felt the moisture of the rain beating on his face.


    At this moment, the carriage he was in was proceeding on a gravel road. Not far away was the silhouette of Thorn City.


    Although this wasn’t his first time here, this seemed to be the second time he had entered the city openly from the main entrance in a carriage.


    !!


    This was a little simr to what he had experienced in-game. Other than having to enter through the main door when first opening up the map, he spent the rest of his time fast traveling using the city’s teleportation nexus.


    But he couldn’t do that today.


    To resolve the problems in Thorn City once and for all, his trip back to Thorn City today needed to be kept a secret.


    Thorn City didn’t look much different from the outsidepared to thest time he came—apart from the fact that the originally dazzling Stranger Astral Lighthouse was tightly surrounded by a temporary ck shell and that the grasnd between Thorn City and the graveyard had turned into pitch-ck scorched earth.


    William had previously plowed thend there with Fire Wall to deal with the remains of the Undead Tide to ensure that it wouldn’t be a wastnd polluted by necromancy spells. Now…


    Life Detection


    In William’s eyes, countless weak and tenacious life auras were brewing under the scorched earth. When the rain passed and the sky cleared, the green sprouts would be reborn on thisnd.


    “After a corpse raised by an Undead spell serves its purpose, its remains have to be buried, returning it to Currere. Only then can the bnce between life and death be maintained.”


    He recalled what he had said to Liliana back then. This was just him imitating a certain friend’s often-repeated philosophy.


    The third Judge of Judgment, Frost Lich Nehe, was a Forest Elf druid who had be a Lich by a freakbination of factors. He firmly believed in the Druid Church’s Bnce of Life and Death philosophy, but he had be a Lich who was a sacrilege against the Bnce of Life and Death. Moreover, because he had lost his phctery, he couldn’t even rest his soul in peace.


    At the end of this character’s quest line, William could choose to hand over the phctery to him after finding it and let him return to the cycle of life and death as he wished, or…


    “In more than a thousand years, his phctery has probably floated around this countless times with the current…” William muttered. This was something he had done casually back then, but it had a terrible effect.


    To prevent this teammate from leaving the team, William secretly threw his phctery into the underground river and let it wash away. Then, he turned around and told Nehe that he hadn’t found it.


    In hindsight, it was an extremely selfish choice.


    The reason why William suddenly thought of Nehe was that he was the first person ke mentioned when he talked about the whereabouts of the other Judges.


    As for Nehe, who had the title of Frost Lich, he was the earliest to lose contact with the Judges.


    “Nehe returned to Holy Tree City after that disastrous meeting. He sensed the possible disputes in the future, but he didn’t want anything to do with it at all. He hoped to exchange his achievements in preventing the Moon Realm crisis for the title of Druid Priest and protect the Holy Tree Forest for the rest of his life. However, this suggestion was rejected by the Holy Tree King. Then, he became disheartened and left Vic Continent by ship. Finally, he disappeared into the depths of the Mist Sea.”


    The Mist Sea was an ocean between the Vic Continent and the Ruins of Orsis. Legend had it that that continent hadpletely sunk to the bottom of the sea because it hadpletely angered the entire Moon Realm.


    He was—in a sense—lucky to leave before the war broke out.


    ke hadmented.


    Subsequently, the sixth Judge, Dragon Dowa King, returned to the Dragon Bone Inds, and the seventh Judge, Ranger Remides Shadowmoon, returned to Ava State and was elected as the city lord of Moow City. The oues of these two Judges were simr to what William had seen in the game’s epilogue.


    Of course, this was if the subsequent incidents didn’t happen.


    As for the remaining people, they lived rtively peacefully for the next few years.


    In the beginning, the five-person meeting led by Lionheart Byron could barely maintain the scale of the Doomsday Watchers. It could even use the remaining might of Judgment to temporarily suppress the mes of war between the stupid Seven Kingdoms.


    Although Astral Observer Siby had gone north to search for the Eye of God for inspiration and Magic Edge Evelyn had returned to her hometown and chosen to be a general magic teacher, Jackdaw and the ck Swordsman had suddenly disappeared.


    However, Judgment still had the five powerful Divine Realm heroes—Lionheart Byron, Shadow Koos, Casten Duvey, Windcaller Jay, and Discipline Macas.


    Under the suppression of the five of them, the Seven Kingdoms—who were looking forward to unifying the continent through war—had no choice but to ept the proposal of temporary peace because they had lost themon threat of the Moon Realm. Of course, this peace was only rtive to an all-out war. In fact, the Seven Kingdoms had never stopped infiltrating the Doomsday Watchers and incorporating the former Salvation Army members.


    The various war tools invented by the Doomsday Watchers and the usage of militarized magic chanters during the Moon Realm war were specially analyzed. The Seven Kingdoms drew on this knowledge eagerly and used it to guide the improvement of their army formations.


    “The King of Deathblood isn’t the only monster created by war, Presiding Judge,” ke said.


    “We made ourselves a monster to defeat the Moon Realm back then. Perhaps we were extremely happy when we saw those war machines and advancedbat techniques tear apart the Lunar Monsters, but we never expected these weapons to turn on us one day.”


    After all, the Doomsday Watchers didn’t have their territory and subjects. Perhaps it could rely on absolute suppression to maintain the continent’s bnce for short periods, but this bnce was undoubtedly very fragile.


    “I heard this from Colester. Back then, after Byron sensed this problem, he raised an idea in the five-person meeting—rather than waiting for the Seven Kingdoms to grasp a sufficient advantage before breaking this fragile bnce, why don’t they break it themselves?”


    Byron nned on getting the Doomsday Watchers to support one of the Seven Kingdoms and unify the entire continent first.


    “Therefore, the five-member group disbanded and split because of this proposal?”


    William asked. He had learned from Valk’s drama that the few people in the five-member groupter chose to support different countries.


    ke shook his head and said, “No, Byron’s proposal did cause many arguments and almost caused the entire five-member group to copse. However, the matter that divided them was another matter


    even though it’s only hearsay on my part and I find it difficult to believe even now.”


    “What was it?” William asked.


    “Casten Duvey, the second-inmand of Judgment who objected to leading a unification by having the Doomsday Watchers support a country, was assassinated.”