As long as you’re alive, there’s hope—a truly inspiring phrase, a textbook example of spiritual encouragement.
But Bai Ya, the one involved, didn’t have the strength to think like that now.
If someone whispered those words in her ear, she wouldn’t mind giving them a hard punch.
Her current state was absolutely terrible.
In the blood-soaked city district, a group of guards were clearing away the corpses.
The strongest feature of this transport ship wasn’t its ability to sail tens of thousands of miles, but its flawless corpse disposal system.
If the bodies weren’t dealt with promptly, disease could break out.
And if a plague erupted, even though the ship had physicians specialized in contagious diseases, it would still ruin the nobles’ mood.
Besides the threat of plague, the gruesome condition of the corpses themselves displeased the nobles.
At first, when the bodies were still fresh, the nobles might find it somewhat interesting to see them once or twice.
But as time passed, their intense fastidiousness would kick in, and they would order their subordinates to clean up the corpses.
Handling corpses was a craft.
Besides the body itself, bloodstains and tissue had to be taken into account.
If a body was incomplete, they had to specifically search for the missing parts to prevent a decayed organ from showing up somewhere and drawing the nobles’ wrath.
Nobles were hard to please—that was the complaint most subordinates shared.
But unlike slaves, these subordinates didn’t harbor resentment toward the nobles.
There was a huge difference between subordinates and slaves.
Nobles commanded both subordinates and slaves and could abuse both.
Subordinates could also abuse slaves.
In a way, they were just the nobles’ kindred, accomplices in their own right.
Because of the Shadow Spider’s rampage, almost half of the nobles gathered at the Treasure Market had died.
This made the guards’ cleanup much more difficult.
It was already late at night, yet they had no choice but to leave their warm beds and tidy up the aftermath.
At this moment, they loathed the slave Bai Ya Ifeil Clorom—the cause of this entire mess—more than anything.
“Hey! Guys, look what I found!”
A guard called out excitedly, waving his hand as he stood atop a pile of rubble.
The ground around was soaked in fresh blood.
Several flames clung quietly to the tattered cloth, burning calmly.
The fabric quickly turned to ash and drifted away on the wind.
The air reeked of burnt flesh and rust, making everyone feel nauseous.
The guard summoned a few comrades and led them to move aside several large stones, revealing a young girl covered in blood and flesh.
Her beautiful white hair was curled and scorched yellow.
Her eyes had turned white.
Her nose was dislocated.
Half her face had collapsed inward, apparently missing flesh.
Blood dripped drop by drop through the burnt skin, and her face was marked by a network of blood trails.
The girl was completely naked; her clothes had been reduced to ashes.
But the guards couldn’t bear to look at her body anymore—it was too heartbreaking.
Compared to the dismembered corpses they’d dealt with before, this was even more tragic.
Her skin was badly burned across a large area.
The petite body was covered in horrifying wounds.
Her arms were incomplete—missing the left arm and the palm of the right hand.
At the burnt wrist of her left arm, tiny sparks still flickered.
The guards searched for some time but ultimately failed to find the missing left arm and right palm.
So they decided to transport the corpse as it was.
It was a perfectly reasonable decision.
According to reports from above, the nobles at the Treasure Market had mostly died at the hands of the slave girl known as the Shadow Spider.
Only one noble had died at the hands of the slave girl called the Cursed Doll.
The corpse they had just found, with its extensive burns, was clearly different from the mangled corpses they had dealt with before.
The sacrifice consumed by the Cursed Doll’s flames was undoubtedly the runaway slave—Bai Ya Ifeil Clorom.
The guards assigned to handle the corpses had dealt with several bodies killed by the Cursed Doll before, so they were very familiar with the slave girl’s attack method.
It was rare for any enemy under her hand to be left whole.
Those missing limbs had all been burned to ashes by her flames.
It was a pity that Bai Ya hadn’t turned to ash herself—otherwise the guards’ job would have been much easier.
After confirming Bai Ya’s identity, the guards summoned a large carriage and together loaded Bai Ya’s corpse inside, stacking it atop a pile of dismembered corpses.
After an hour of hard work, the blood-soaked streets looked brand new.
The bloodstains had all been washed away with special materials.
The corpses had all been collected.
The upcoming restoration work was the architects’ and laborers’ concern.
With their abilities, this place would be restored to its original state within three days.
The guards yawned as they returned to their quarters to sleep—everyone except one.
That one was the driver.
The only sleepless one had to drive the carriage carrying the corpses to their destination.
This was the last step in corpse disposal.
And the most important one: destroying the bodies to prevent the outbreak of disease.
The destination was the burial ground.
When the guards arrived at the burial ground, they cautiously drew their weapons.
The burial ground was located in a cave in the back mountain.
It was deep night.
The pitch-black, bottomless cave brought an unshakable terror to the guards.
One guard’s spirit finally broke, and with a scream, he fled in panic.
His task was only to bring the carriage to the vicinity of the burial ground—his job was done.
Inside the cave, green lights began flickering one after another, like the eyes of some creature.
Their numbers were vast.
Beast-like howls echoed continuously from the darkness.
Mixed in were the quick steps of many running creatures rapidly closing in on the cave entrance.
The burial ground was a breeding ground for ghouls.
One terrifying face after another emerged from the shadows.
The monsters swarmed toward the carriage.
They had human bodies and limbs, but their tongues were long, serrated, and grotesque.
Judging by their speed and jumping ability, their physical prowess easily surpassed that of humans.
The ghouls began to feed.
They were starving—hungry every moment of every day.
Only by feeding could they ease their suffering even slightly.
They would devour every scrap of flesh in the carriage, leaving not even a trace behind.