When Midnight Ghost saw the ugly gargoyle for the twenty-seventh time, he finally sighed inwardly to himself, to the shadow that was too stubborn to bow his head.

It's all in vain, like a stupid wild dog constantly chasing its own tail.

Conrad had to admit it: though he gritted his teeth and admitted it.

The former King of Nostramo couldn't help but bend his waist and press his knees with the long, pale fingers under his two pairs of sharp claws, and his long black hair, which had become much softer, drooped under the capture of gravity, hiding his strange eyes that were lost in thought.

Beneath his long hair, Midnight Wraith gasped heavily, his face not unlike before, but some of the most essential parts had quietly undergone some subtle changes.

In Conrad's pupils, there was not much excitement and sneer that had emanated from the fear in his mind and the bloodthirsty savage nature for so long: instead, there was a kind of confusion, and behind the confusion, those magical objects that could be reluctantly called "thinking".

The king, who had once terrified the criminal world, was now like a pure black cloth, constantly absorbing the elements around him, but nothing in return: he just bent down, rested for a while, and then raised his head again to continue his climb.

Conrad climbed very fast, his every move showed extraordinary skill, and before any mortal could utter an instinctive exclamation, the former Night Lord trampled the towering towers under his feet like a leaping bullet, and when he did all this, he seemed not much from the sky.

Without speaking, without anger or joy, Coetze searched almost numbly at the top of the tower, and soon found the ugliest gargoyle: the already hideous rock face, now completely unrecognizable by the continuous acid rain, made the Midnight Wraith feel a heartfelt kindness, and he walked over and sat down beside the gargoyle, looking down indifferently at the dark city beneath his feet.

The tower, which had been millennia for thousands of years, was now decaying, reflecting only the dimest glimmer of the night, but nevertheless it was a lighthouse, illuminating everything beneath the Midnight Wraith's feet: ruins, darkness, sin, traffic, and the alleys and sewers in the shadows, hiding all the vileness and atrocities imaginable.

Yes, this is Nostramo, the kingdom of the Midnight Ghost, and the pathetic homeland he hates and misses the most.

Although he had witnessed similar scenes countless times, there was still a hint of strangeness flashing in Conrad's pupils, and he involuntarily stretched out his hand, as if he wanted to hold the city that was close at hand in his palm.

But in the next second, the most brutal muffled snort spilled out of his chest, and the Midnight Wraith withdrew his hand like an electric shock, and his dazed face returned to wildness in an instant, and with a casual wave of his hand, he threw the unrecognizable gargoyle down, all the way to the hard stone ground hundreds of meters below.

The sound of the weight slapping and the stone shattering reached Conrad's ears at the same time, and everything was so real, but when he turned his head to look at where the gargoyle had been, he was not surprised to see the unrecognizable figure again.

Conrad was not surprised, he just adjusted his sitting position, lowered his head and closed his eyes, as if waiting for someone to come: when he fell into this light sleep, his countenance actually softened, and even had some imperceptible ease.

About half a Terra standard hour later, when the obscured moon was supposed to hang in the middle of the night, the non-existent clock awakened the Midnight Wraith's eyes in time, and he leaped to his feet, like a feline beast waiting for its prey by a stream, his thin back bent high, his eyes glittering with excitement.

Almost the next moment, a black shadow flashed in front of Conrad even faster than him, mercilessly piercing the long night that was still noisy in Nostramo.

Midnight Wraith's eyes narrowed, and he hesitated, but finally quickly caught up with the shadow: it wasn't an easy task, the shadow had the same agility as Conrad, and he made his way through the rocky buildings of the decaying city, changing his position in the mid-air of bullets, lurking from one shadow to another.

But the Midnight Wraith never followed, and he followed the shadow, leaving the dilapidated tower, through the noisy black market, climbing up the foul-smelling pipes, and finally to the depths of the hive, full of closed recycling centers and old water systems, and the streets and alleys, where the shadow remained for a while, as if in some hesitation and search, and when it began to act again, it was tracking a woman in the shadows.

The woman was not pretty, and her pale face was filled with a kind of spitting for life, and she stumbled along the foul path with a tattered box, which seemed to be some kind of relic, until she fell headlong into her own small dwelling.

The shadow was hidden outside her window, and instead of breaking in at once, it quietly endured the brief cry, and endured the woman in the room who had made the wrong decision in the final disappointment of all hopes: she had changed into the best dress, hung the sturdy gauze on the worn beams, and after a minute of hesitation, she moved the stool.

"It's time."

Despite the distance, Conrad could hear the whispers in the shadows, agreeing to see the night monster he was following, the Inquisitor who had wrapped himself in a tattered robe: perhaps the Midnight Wraith's gaze was too pretentious, and the shadow had glanced behind him suspiciously before prying open the door.

Beneath the tattered hood was the face of the Midnight Ghost, only more emaciated, paranoid, and brutal.

Although Conrad, who was a bystander, did not hide himself, the midnight ghost in the shadows was equally unaware of his presence, and like anyone in the noisy hive, they could not see him.

For they were not real, they were mere fragments of the Midnight Wraith's memories, stubborn stains he could not forget, wielded by some greater malice, which was now vividly unfolding before him.

He was not in the same dimension as everything around him, so they could not see him: just as he could not do anything about anything that happened before him.

Thinking of this, Conrad couldn't help but close his eyes, and he found that he seemed to like sighing lately.

And as he sighed, what had already happened was moving inexorably: the scrawny Inquisitor had broken into the cramped house and pronounced the sentence of the Midnight Wraith to the woman who was saying her lover's last goodbye to her lover's relics.

She was guilty because she had given up hope of living and succumbed to the majesty of reality, and she had been struck down by the death of her beloved, and had decided to leave this world once and for all, ready to end her long agony by suicide: this was not the right thing to do by the standards of the Midnight Ghost.

Even now, he's thinking so.

Suicide is wrong: because every suicide is a corroding and weakening of culture, and every life abandoned by self will become an irreparable signal, and the woman's behavior not only abandons the existence of the self, but also devalues the value of human beings, making the world more incorrigible.

So, she is guilty.

So, she's damned.

Now Conrad was leaning against the window, which would never be closed, reaffirming the remarks as he watched the events in the room, and as he looked at his former self, the cry of the judge happened to reach his ears.

Her voice was small, but with an inexplicable provocation.

"I failed, but I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't hurt anyone, I didn't even think about it, I lived a hard life here without complaint......"

She spoke of her past innocence and suffering, but neither Conrad had any interest in listening: he knew that this woman was not lying, that she had not committed any crimes in her own life, but who had chosen a wrongful death?

Midnight Ghost didn't care how she was alive, because her crime was in the kind of death she chose, so he only cared about how she was going to die.

Thinking of this, Conrad, who was leaning against the edge of the window, couldn't help frowning, and he always felt that there seemed to be some rebellion in his heart: when he witnessed the judgment he had made in the past as a spectator rather than an executor, a strange sense of guilt unconsciously rippled in his heart.

It seemed to be a kind of uneasiness, accompanied by some inexplicable thoughts.

How did she live: and what kind of life would make her choose this wrong death?

Words like these, like an unobserved meteor, streaked across the mind of the Midnight Ghost, making him a little irritable, and he stroked his skin, firmly erasing the doubts.

This was not his concern: he didn't care how she lived, he only cared about the crimes she had committed, and that was his vocation as a judge.

……

…… That's it......

Conrad closed his eyes, and the boundless darkness of his heart was once again enveloped, crushing the faintest trace of uneasiness into crumbs with ease.

He breathed heavily, leaned against the dry wall, listened to the mournful weeping of the room, and the smile that pretended to be serious: he remembered what he had done to the woman, that he had put an end to her crime, and that he had pained enough to make her realize his mistake.

He gave her death, only in a more brutal way, for he tortured her as best he could: the first slash to skin her alive was from the shoulder all the way to the tip of her little finger, and the screams that followed were enough to wake half the nest.

He had no other way, for he was to warn all with her pain, to deter thousands of would-be suicides with this terrible punishment: a necessary sacrifice, though incomparably cruel, though splashed with blood that made his heart beat, but ......

"I assure you, I don't like it at all."

In the room, the midnight ghost of the past was assuring, and his voice sounded serious and formal, but it was quickly drowned out by the woman's heart-rending wail.

It was only then that Conrad, who was outside the window, finally opened his eyes, stood up, turned around, and looked into the room: he didn't know how many times he had done this in the countless reincarnations he had done before.

But each time, he only got the same result that disappointed him.

The rusty windows could not stop the Midnight Ghost from looking, and his pupils captured the scene of the house in its entirety: in the midst of that crowded room, a horrific atrocity was unfolding, and no trial in the mortal world seemed to match the scene before him.

The Midnight Wraith clutched the long knife he had made himself, his filthy nails slicing across the woman's face, and concentrated on his work, peeling off the skin of the criminal in front of him little by little as a deterrent with countless swings of the knife that he could not catch.

Countless warm, wet blood splattered from the edge of the long knife to the Midnight Wraith's face, and he faced the crimson with all seriousness, and his tone was like that of a holy martyr.

He said he didn't like that.

However, he lied.

He knows this very well.

“……”

Conrad breathed deeply, he could feel his hands trembling, he could feel his pupils dodging, and even though the screams were pounding into his ears, he was still running away, running away from that face.

The face that belongs to him.

“……”

What did he see?

What kind of blasphemy did he see in the past?

What kind of outward appearance dwells in that face, in the face of the midnight ghost that belongs to Nostramo, in the face that is supposed to be in the midst of judgment, to fulfill the great vocation of which he was born?

Is it serious? Is it serious? Is it the solemnity and ruthlessness of having to come and fulfill his responsibilities because of the necessity of no choice, as he said?

……

Is that so?

……

He had hoped so.

He had thought so.

……

“……”

Again, Midnight Wraith breathed deeply.

He heard his own sighs, heard them disappear into the terrible screams.

……

Conrad opened his eyes, he looked at the Inquisitor in the room, he looked at his past self, at the lifelike fragments that time had projected in front of him.

He saw, he saw that there was no peace in that pale face, but some kind of madness that was distorted to the point of incredulity, the eyes that were already huge, like the eyes of a bloodthirsty tiger, flashed with a thirst for blood, the thin lips had long been cocked, revealing the fangs stained with saliva, no different from a vicious dog waiting for an opportunity, as for the tongue that was temporarily forgotten, it was not known whether it was intentional or unintentional, but quietly licked the blood splashed on the face, Quickly hid in the throat of the black hole.

The Midnight Ghost's face was by no means the calm he had described himself, but like a monster in a story, like a ghost in a myth, like a monster that had been hungry and thirsty for thousands of years, full of thirst for blood and atrocities, outlining an inhuman and terrifying face.

In this madness, he dragged his pale, bony, yet gigantic body, licked the blood with his slender tongue, peeled off the skin with his withered claws, and constantly made everything in the room look more hateful and ridiculous with his hypocritical words.

He's enjoying it.

He's impulsive.

He's lying.

……

He enjoyed it.

……

At this moment, the being named Conrad was so vile, cruel, and bloodthirsty that he seemed to be indistinguishable from the sinners of Nostramon who acted only to satisfy their dark desires.

……

Outside the dilapidated window, the ghostly bystander just watched it all quietly, as if the man inside was not himself in the past, and he looked at the atrocities in front of him with a strange gaze, which was neither repentance nor madness, but a kind of lost consciousness, an inexplicable resentment towards his creator.

He was quiet, as if he had already had his own opinion of the scene in front of him.

The wailing continued, but it had gradually faded, and the inquisitor in the room could not help but retract his countenance, and became a little dejected: it was evident that this was another failed judgment, for he did not inflict all the horror, for the guilty man had died prematurely.

All of this caused the Midnight Ghost in the shadows to feel an inexplicable sense of chagrin, and he abandoned the place and left like a whirlwind, because soon someone would follow the screams, and he had a lot of work to do.

So, the Inquisitor, who walked in the memory of his return, jumped out of the window like a gust of wind, and flashed back from the ghostly midnight ghost, bringing death and blood with him, and in the blink of an eye, disappeared into the night.

Conrad watched the departure of his past self, and he didn't chase after him, but took another deep breath, as if he could smell blood in the air.

With the vanishing of that shadow, this memory seemed to be completely over, and the Midnight Ghost could sense that the world in front of him seemed to be collapsing, and the Nostramo nest that was enough to be fake and real slowly disappeared in a silent disintegration, but in the blink of an eye, his front of him turned into nothingness again.

Conrad was not surprised, he had already adapted to all this: since he had been exiled to this void space, such a scene had played out countless times, and he saw it as a captivity, a pleasant journey of restraint.

After his casual farce nearly detonated the battle between the two legions, the soul of the Midnight Ghost is now temporarily locked up in a strange building, which seems to be a labyrinth with no exit at all, and all the black bricks and tiles that look indistinguishable as far as the eye can see, and every time he walks around a corner, he abruptly falls into a memory, and he returns to the old Nostramo, to the side of the old Midnight Ghost.

At first, it all made him feel frantic and irritable, desperate to find a way to destroy the illusions, and when he first saw the Midnight Wraith's face at the Judgment from the perspective of a bystander, his madness frightened even himself.

“……”

But that's all in the past.

Conrad didn't know how long he had been held here, and all his timekeeping had been interfered with, but he thought his sentence was long: after all, he had already been through twenty-seven suicide trials alone.

It was the same every time, he watched everything from the point of view of a spectator, and there was no freedom to escape: once he deviated from that route, he would be involuntarily sent back to the place where it all began, until he had to witness the whole process of that trial.

Conrad didn't know why his blood relatives had forced him to watch the trial over and over again, but whatever she wanted to do, she was afraid she would be disappointed: the Midnight Ghost was still the Midnight Ghost, and he hadn't changed.

……

……

Maybe.

Conrad lowered his eyebrows, he didn't stop any longer, but walked briskly to the next corner: although the memory of Nostramo was just a fake, at least the wind there was real, and the dream there was the quietest.

This alone required him to have a good impression of his carrion blood relative: he didn't know how she did it, but in this cage-like labyrinth of memories and memories, the influence of his prophecy was indeed weakening, and if not completely gone, it was confined to a range that could make people feel comfortable.

……

He even fell in love with it.

When such thoughts came to Midnight Ghost's mind, he couldn't help but smile sarcastically, and in this irony of himself, he stepped into the corner of the next labyrinth, into the next memory.

……

And when he opened his eyes, what appeared in front of him was the tower, and the gargoyle that was unrecognizable.

“……”

Well, the twenty-eighth time.

——————

Without complaint, Conrad climbed the tower, still looking forward to half a Terra's standard hour of sleep, and the gargoyle that was so ugly that he missed.

But alas, this time, everything seems to have a little surprise.

——————

You're a lot slower than I thought, my sweet little parasite. 】

When Conrad came to the tower for the twenty-eighth time, he was shocked to find that a certain silver-haired lady with rotting corpses had been waiting there for a long time, and it looked like it had been there for some time.

"Why are you here?"

This is my kingdom. 】

The Midnight Ghost fell silent, and for a moment he became restrained, and the top of the tower, which had been so familiar, became strange, especially when he saw his sweet little gargoyle brother tossing up and down at random in the palm of his blood relative.

Conrad stared at Morgan for a moment of silence before speaking tentatively.

"Your business is over?"

[For the time being, yes.] 】

"How long has it been outside, a year?"

[Not that long, six months. 】

“……”

Conrad was silent again, and he looked uncomfortable, as if a small animal's territory had been ruthlessly encroached upon.

"You...... Come take me out? ”

Midnight Wraith's question evoked a smile in the Spider Queen's pupils, and she turned her head, casually dropping the gargoyle, staring amusefully at Conrad's most serious expression.

[Maybe it is, maybe it doesn't.] 】

“……”

Coates raised an eyebrow, and he quickly realized the meaning of the words, and responded mercilessly with a sarcastic laugh.

"If you want to exchange the so-called freedom outside the cage for my submission, then I advise you to get out of here as soon as possible: I like it here, it makes me feel happy here, and I have nothing to say to you."

Midnight Wraith's voice was a little loud, causing the Spider Empress to raise her eyebrows in displeasure, and before Conrad could derive a false sense of victory from this displeasure, his loving blood relatives had gently waved his hand and casually slammed him against the wall.

"Bang!"

“……？！”

Midnight Ghost's eyes widened in disbelief, as if he was genuinely confused by the blood kin's behavior, but before he could say anything, Morgan was already in front of him.

With another wave of her hand, the Midnight Ghost was embedded deep in the wall, causing the Spider Queen to nod in satisfaction.

"Now, I think we can finally have a good conversation, right?" 】

Coetzes blinked.

"I think we could have ...... too"

Morgan raised his hand.

“……”

Coetze fell silent.

[Very good, that's my favorite atmosphere for communication.] 】

The Spider Empress smiled with satisfaction, and she casually looked around, at the fake Nostramo, before returning her gaze to her own blood brother.

[My patience with you is limited, my pathetic parasite brother, so, I ask, you answer: do you understand? 】

“……”

Midnight Ghost didn't speak.

Midnight Wraith just nodded.

[Very good.] 】

For a moment, Conrad even saw in the countenance of his blood relatives a flash of true horror, a force that was enough to make him even die for a while.

[I have only one question, my dear brother. 】

Morgan slowly approached her Midnight Ghost, grabbed him by the neck, choked the fragile veins, her blue-blue pupils no longer maintaining their original coldness, but flickering with a kind of selective seething.

You see, Conrad, you can't deny it. 】

[You know: when you are in the midst of your so-called trial, your countenance and madness do not seem to be any more different from those of the criminals whom you are determined to be clear, a bloodthirsty impulse, not some necessity of no choice, that has driven you to commit countless atrocities like this. 】

[When I first extracted this passage from your memory, I realized this: walking under this night is not a judge, but a pathetic slave driven by the dark desires of his own heart. 】

[Isn't it?] 】

Morgan's words were unwavering verdicts, and no one seemed to be able to confront the blade of her mouth, but the only answer to such accusations was the pale, yet frenetic smile.

"Maybe, or maybe not?"

"Bang!"

Without hesitation, the Spider Empress grabbed his head and slammed it to the side.

[I suggest you don't follow me.] 】

"I try."

Conrad smiled insincerely, his pupils flickering with a certain curiosity.

"What do you ask these things for?"

Morgan was laughing as well.

[Nothing, I'm just curious about something: when you witness these scenes over and over again, what new ideas will turn up in your heart? 】

[Is there any?] 】

“……”

Midnight Wraith nodded.

"You're hating yourself. 】

"Nope."

"I hate the Emperor."

"I hate our father."

Midnight Wraith laughed, and he lay down in the mess of rubble, laughing heartily at the hint of confusion between the Spider Queen's brow, like a beggar who wanted nothing else.

"Let me tell you, Morgan."

"When I saw how ugly the Midnight Ghost was, how crazy he was at trial, like a pure bloodthirsty man, the real confusion lasted less than a second in my heart."

"Because I quickly realized: who the hell I should hate."

"Emperor, our father!"

"He is the one who started it all!"

"He made a mistake, a big mistake: if he wanted a Midnight Wraith who would bring him perfect justice and order, he shouldn't have stuffed Conrad-Coetze into the ruthless machine of the Midnight Wraith!"

"This is a pure failure!"

"The Midnight Ghost is righteous, he's a pure monster, everything he does runs according to the program that was written long ago, he will never be disturbed in any way, he will never fall into any desires."

"But Conrad-Coetzes can't, because Conrad is weak, because Conrad is a bloodthirsty bastard, because Conrad can't control his desires, because Conrad is so...... Weak. ”

【……】

"I realized this early on, my dear blood relative."

"But: thanks to your help, I'm finally able to face this point: what the world really needs is the Midnight Wraith, but alas, Conrad has restrained him."

"He can't get out, he can only let Conrad, a soft egg, cowardly and incompetent live."

"It's sad, isn't it?"

(End of chapter)