Chapter 37: Judgment

‘Villain?’  

The word lingered lightly in Xing Yue’s mind.  

She suddenly recalled the clean and tidy environment of the Demon King Castle, the demon who was arrested and imprisoned just for catching fish in the river, and her own identity as the descendant of the Demon King.  

When she first learned of this identity, Xing Yue always comforted herself internally: ‘I’m born on the villain side, that’s true, but among these monsters, I’m still a reasonable, principled “good person,” right?’  

Her modern soul made everything in the Demon King Castle seem taken for granted in her eyes.  

Until, on this human territory that should have been labeled “civilized,” she witnessed with her own eyes the spreading pool of blood on the carpet, saw with her own eyes how life was treated as a plaything for venting anger, contemptuously cut, trampled, and ended.  

Xing Yue felt that compared to Baron Jiefulun before her, the demons she had encountered in the Demon King Castle all seemed kind and benevolent.  

Perhaps…  

The boundary between “good person” and “villain” never depended on whether one was born in the Demon King Castle or on human territory.  

Xing Yue recalled her deal with Debbie. The words Debbie had rambled to her at that time finally resonated with her in this moment.  

She was facing a “demon” who treated life as a plaything and took pleasure in tormenting and killing.  

Against such an existence, had her previous schemes, her worries about “alerting the enemy” or “triggering a full-scale encirclement,” been… too “polite”?  

She was not a knight coming to execute justice, nor a scale balancing good and evil.  

Those concepts here, on this land soaked in blood, seemed pale and hypocritical.  

If “justice” stood high and condoned atrocities.  

If “light” turned its back and ignored the wails.  

Then perhaps she was better suited to play another role. A more direct, more pure, and more… “apt” role.  

A “villain” from the abyss, using the darkest methods to snuff out another, filthier flame.  

Using demonic means to “sanction” the demon!  

The surging black mist outside the window suddenly contracted inward, as if swallowed by an invisible vortex, then rapidly condensed under the moonlight, outlining a slender humanoid silhouette.  

Silver-white hair cascaded like a cold spring, falling to her waist, the ends seemingly still wrapped in the lingering night air.  

She raised her face; her left eye was a deep red like solidified blood amber, her right eye an icy blue like polar frost, both now reflecting the piercing red of the still-unspilled blood pool inside the room.  

The converging shadows and flowing moonlight intertwined and settled on her, transforming into a form-fitting black-red Gothic dress.  

The hem layered like night, and the wine-red lace at the collar and skirt edges seemed like dried blood seeping into the deepest black, forming a cold and eerie harmony with her silver hair and heterochromatic eyes.  

All this change happened silently, yet Xing Yue herself was completely unaware.  

The window casement opened without wind.  

Baron Jiefulun was raising his dagger, aiming at the heart of the beastman servant on the floor, his face still flushed with the excitement of inflicting pain.  

The next moment, he felt an irresistible force slam heavily into his wrist!  

Crack!  

A crisp sound of bone breaking rang out. The ruby dagger flew from his hand, tumbled through the air several times, and with a ding, embedded itself diagonally into a distant wooden bookshelf.  

Jiefulun let out a miserable shriek. His obese body was thrown backward by the residual force, crashing heavily into the solid oak desk. Bottles and cups shattered all over the floor with a clatter.  

He only heard a rush of wind; he couldn’t even see who had attacked him.  

And Xing Yue’s figure had already appeared like a ghost beside the beastman servant.  

She didn’t spare a glance at the wailing baron. Her eyes lowered, falling on the beastman’s bloody, mangled head and his barely breathing body.  

“I’m sorry for making you suffer. Please hold on a little longer.”  

Her voice was very soft, without much warmth, yet oddly carried a steady, unquestionable assurance.  

She extended her right hand, palm down, hovering above the beastman’s wound. No lengthy incantation followed, no dazzling burst of light.  

Only a pure, snow-like, yet dawn-warm platinum light gently radiated from her palm, softly spilling down.  

Where the light touched, the edges of the gruesome wound began to wriggle and heal visibly, and even his head regrew a pair of wolf ears.  

The bleeding stopped. The pale face regained a trace of life. The chest, which had nearly stopped, resumed its rise and fall.  

This was a healing spell personally taught by the Holy Maiden Wei Anna, using the purest life energy to directly nourish injuries—extremely effective.  

The beastman servant’s unfocused eyes moved slightly, as if trying to see who it was.  

At that moment, Jiefulun barely recovered from the pain and the dizziness of the impact.  

He clutched his twisted, deformed wrist, glaring at the silver-haired girl who had suddenly appeared in the room, his voice a mix of shock and rage: “You… who are you?! Guards! Gua—”  

His shout was cut short.  

Xing Yue didn’t even turn her head. She simply waved her right hand backward casually, as if shooing away an annoying fly.  

The next instant, a cyan-green magic circle appeared in her palm. A gust of wind materialized out of nowhere, precisely gripping Jiefulun’s throat, blocking his remaining howl along with the air.  

His obese body was lifted a few inches into the air, then slammed viciously onto the carpet. The impact made stars burst before his eyes, the air in his lungs forced out, leaving him only able to make hoarse gurgling sounds. His head lolled to the side as he passed out.  

Confirming that the beastman was out of danger, Xing Yue slowly straightened up. Her gaze finally turned to the baron, lying limp on the floor like mud.  

She did not immediately grant him death, nor did she subject him to prolonged torture.  

How to punish this “demon” should not be decided by her alone. It should be left to those who had suffered his poison.  

But even so, Xing Yue couldn’t resist secretly kicking him one more time, venting a little of the pent-up frustration in her heart, muttering softly:  

“Perverts and scum like him belong in hell…”  

Having done all this, Xing Yue seemed to truly “enter” the room, calmly and somewhat curiously looking around.  

The room had now fallen into dead silence, broken only by the crackling of firewood in the fireplace.  

The servants and musicians huddled in the corner were frozen, their faces drained of color. They even forgot to breathe, staring wide-eyed in terror at this uninvited guest.  

Her gaze swept over those terrified faces, then toward the empty doorway.  

No guards rushed in. Not a single one. Outside, it was unusually quiet, just like inside the room. No heavily armed ambush as she had imagined.  

Xing Yue suddenly felt that her previous carefulness—meticulously scouting the terrain, worrying about being discovered, worrying about traps, worrying about an empty-city strategy, even deliberating over infiltration and escape routes—  

That intense sense of stealthy caution now seemed a bit absurd.  

“Damn, I’ve become the Bone King…”