Chapter 48: A Sudden Judgment: The Assassin's Fall
Under the players' "somewhat heavy-handed" methods, an extremely bizarre scene unfolded in the hotel at night:
Several men with terrible complexions chased after a single woman.
And this woman kept prowling the hotel corridors, slipping into each room she passed, then emerging moments later with an irritated expression.
The entire process didn't last long each time. No sounds came from the quiet rooms, yet when anyone entered afterward, they would discover: the guest in the bed had vanished.
The room's contents lay scattered across the floor, but not a single item was taken.
Such behavior clearly wasn't motivated by money.
So the question arose:
What exactly was this female thief "stealing"?
Answer: Cheng Shi's time.
After tailing Yun Ni through over a dozen rooms, Cheng Shi gave up completely.
Found absolutely nothing.
Aside from luggage brought by guests and large quantities of survival necessities, his biggest discovery was spotting a few novel-style sexy lingerie pieces in one lady's wardrobe…
Not gonna lie, this lady's taste… never mind, back to business.
The rooms they'd just canvassed clearly housed ordinary, respectable guests, not the person they were looking for.
And there were far too many guests in the hotel. At this rate, even if they searched until dawn, they couldn't possibly finish the third floor.
Let alone the two floors below.
Continuing like this, when dawn broke, Yun Ni would be forced to return all the guests she'd sent to "other planes."
At that point, panic would spread even more fiercely through the hotel.
Midway through, Cheng Shi had repeatedly reminded the others: "Should we keep going?"
Their responses were quite telling:
Fang Jue frowned, Du Xiguang smiled, the Ascetic Monk said nothing.
Clearly, the heavyweights also wanted to gamble on their luck.
They were betting that they might stumble onto a useful clue, which could potentially save some time.
Since the big shots weren't willing to stop, Cheng Shi the freeloader naturally had no say in the matter.
On they went.
But life was like that. The more you rushed, the less you accomplished.
This unconventional method was ultimately unsustainable.
At some point before dawn, the Assassin lady's operation was discovered.
More precisely, she exposed herself.
When Yun Ni once again expertly slipped into a room, four men in black robes, seated in perfect formation, simultaneously opened their eyes and looked straight at her.
The moment those four pairs of bright eyes snapped open, a surge of [Order]'s power began to churn!
Its viscous texture made it feel as though He had personally descended upon this place!
Yun Ni's expression changed drastically. She spun and ran.
But the moment she entered that room, her fate was already sealed.
Majestic, authoritative chants rose one after another, voices like great bells:
"Within this place, fleeing is forbidden!"
"Within this place, crying out is forbidden!"
"Within this place, resistance is forbidden!"
"Within this place, sophistry is forbidden!"
Terrifying waves of holy light erupted one after another, instantly painting the entire room in gleaming gold.
Shackle after shackle, forged from edicts and decrees, wound around Yun Ni's limbs like living things.
She was powerless to resist and unable to call for help. She could only watch helplessly as she was immobilized, then dragged upward by the chains, hoisted high into midair.
Suspended as though in a drawing-and-quartering pose.
Various forms of [Order]'s pressure and negative states ravaged her body relentlessly, until the Magistrate in his judgment robes seated on the bed opened his eyes. Only then did this horrifying "torture" pause for an instant.
But what came next was the true nightmare.
The Magistrate withdrew his Judgment Scepter from the void. A pair of eyes surging with violet lightning fixed upon Yun Ni. He aimed gently at the spot where she was chained, and spoke slowly:
"Do you confess?"
Confess?
Confess to what?
Giving sleeping guests a free trip to a strange plane counted as a crime?
Wasn't that charity?
Of course, if Cheng Shi were the one caught, he might have had such thoughts.
But for Yun Ni, in this moment, she felt neither joy nor sorrow.
She recognized these people's identities. These were unmistakably agents of the Grand Tribunal.
The Grand Tribunal's people had arrived long ago!
They had come to Everbloom in silence, disguised as ordinary guests, infiltrating the hotel to conduct their investigation!
Of course. If even the players could narrow down the killer's location, how could these Magistrates, whose very purpose was judgment, lack the means?
They had already locked down the general area where the suspect resided, and possibly even had several persons of interest.
And she was nothing more than a "foolish deer" that had blundered into their trap while they lay in wait for their prey!
Even more terrifying, she sensed the same divine fluctuation from the Scepter the Magistrate produced as she had from [Blooming Only to Wither]!
Another semi-divine artifact!
The third semi-divine artifact encountered in a single day!
What did this mean?
It meant she might die!
Yun Ni had long anticipated that something could go wrong, but from start to finish, she'd been strategizing how to counter the bizarre attack of [When Fear Arrives].
Never did she imagine she'd be done in for real, but by another semi-divine artifact in the hands of the Grand Tribunal.
To deliberate so extensively, only to face such an absurd ending.
Simply laughable.
Yun Ni seemed to abandon any thought of defending herself, even though she felt entirely innocent.
But when a Magistrate was determined to find you guilty, silence was better than rebuttal.
At least she could preserve her final shred of dignity and not play the clown.
This Magistrate's rhetoric clearly aimed to have her killed.
Yun Ni smiled fearlessly, then turned her head away.
However, [Order]'s power ultimately forced her to speak.
An invisible pressure materialized as a transparent hand, gripped her throat, and squeezed a response from her windpipe:
"…Yes!"
Immediately after…
With a "boom," lightning struck!
The sinner…
Turned to ash!
From confession to annihilation, not even the time to blink was wasted.
Though in Everbloom, [Blooming Only to Wither] equally protected everyone,
there were always other gods' wills that could bring death.
Just as [Order]'s judgment was irrevocable!
The Magistrate completed the execution, but he didn't appear satisfied. Looking at the spot where Yun Ni had vanished, his brow furrowed.
He had indeed sensed death, but according to his understanding of his own lightning punishment, the dead sinner should have been reduced to a charred corpse, not simply dissolved and scattered into nothingness.
This manner of death resembled something he hadn't seen in a long time…
A nearby Inquisitor also noticed the anomaly. He frowned and asked:
"My Lord, this is?"
The Magistrate pondered for a moment, then said coldly:
"Likely a special technique from the subterranean faith of [Annihilation]. No matter. The sinner has been executed."
If the Magistrate said the sinner was dead, then the sinner had zero chance of survival.
All four Inquisitors nodded simultaneously, then closed their eyes and returned to silence.
The Magistrate put away his Scepter. Instead of closing his eyes, he turned his icy gaze toward the door.
Outside the door, Fang Jue was drenched in cold sweat, and Du Xiguang's fists were clenched tight.
The two of them had been a single step away from following Yun Ni inside. Fortunately, Yun Ni had issued a rapid warning the instant she entered, causing them a split second of caution.
It was precisely that fraction of a second's hesitation that saved their lives.
The two retreated with extremely grave expressions, withdrawing all the way to the stairwell, where they encountered Cheng Shi and the Ascetic Monk in the shadows. Only then did they stop and wipe the cold sweat from their foreheads.
Cheng Shi hadn't witnessed everything that happened inside and outside the room. Seeing their grim expressions, his stomach dropped.
"Where's Yun Ni?"
Fang Jue's eyes darkened. He said nothing.
Du Xiguang slowly shook his head, the message unambiguous.
"Dead?"
Was Everbloom truly a town where one could only die of natural old age?
Cheng Shi was utterly stunned. He stared wide-eyed at that room, seemingly trying to recall who had been staying there.
If he remembered correctly, before they went out, that room should have been empty.
Which meant the people in that room had checked in during the brief window when the players were out searching for Wei Guan.
The two sides had perfectly missed each other!
"Who's inside?"
This time Fang Jue spoke.
"[Order]. I sensed the fluctuation of [Order]'s power."
The Grand Tribunal!
Without question, it could only be the Grand Tribunal!
They had actually arrived already!
He'd only been idly speculating moments ago. He never imagined it would turn out to be true.
Cheng Shi felt the sting of fate's cruel joke, his face unspeakably grim.
A seven-day trial, and at dawn of the second day, another one lost.
Six, reduced to four.
Meanwhile, the guests Yun Ni had dispatched to other planes were violently spat back by the planes with a "bang," jolting awake on their beds, each feeling as though they'd just survived a horrific nightmare.
Yet they retained absolutely no memory of the true culprit who had manufactured this nightmare.
Because the culprit had already been executed.
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