CLEAVER OF SIN Chapter 610: Naive

Asher's mind raced uncontrollably with wild fantasies, his thoughts twisting through endless scenarios as he struggled to grasp a secret buried so profoundly deep. This group might have lurked for a thousand years, or two thousand, perhaps only a hundred, or even fifty.

Yet in the vast tapestry of events, none of that held real weight—what counted was their overwhelming enigma, their secrecy executed with flawless precision, reaching levels so ridiculously extreme it bordered on the supernatural.

"But what if the unification of Man and Emovirae was their true goal?" Asher questioned, his inquiry sound, his voice laced with eager curiosity and wary doubt.

"Maybe, but it’s unlikely," Malrik responded, "we’ve known about their Experiment branch for a few years, it’s nothing new to us. Why do you think the mission was left to the Star Academy? It’s simply because we’ve seen it way too many times." Malrik paused for a beat, then went on, "surely you aren’t naive enough to believe that the Star Academy didn’t know about this and that a group of villagers could gather up thirty thousand points—that would cripple all of them. Cindralis or the Vice Principal was probably the one that increased the mission reward and also added the bonus reward just so the mission would be taken as fast as possible. Just that they had miscalculated, after all, a Radiant Wavestar Life Ranker ended up leading the operation this time," Malrik concluded firmly.

A strange gleam flickered in Asher’s eyes, a shadow of deep thought crossing them as he absorbed those revelations. He had no clue how many points villagers could scrape together, unaware of their resource pools or the Star Academy’s conversion rates for turning assets into points, which made accurate judgment impossible from the start.

From Malrik’s explanation, Asher silently deduced that the Empire had become numb to disappearances caused by this Experiment branch, too indifferent to act, so they dumped it on Star Academy students or adventurers like some everyday nuisance.

"Why isn’t the Empire doing anything about this?" Asher pressed, not positioning himself as a hero, but if he ruled as Emperor, he wouldn’t idly watch his subjects turned into lab rats without striking back somehow.

Malrik let out a weary sigh at Asher’s query, "it seems you are still too naive, little brother," he said while tousling Asher’s hair, as if weary of dwelling on the subject.

"What do you mean? Just answer the question," Asher shot back, brushing off Malrik’s hand and neatly fixing his slightly messed-up hair.

"The Emperor... or rather the entire noble society doesn’t care," Malrik explained evenly, his words heavy with unyielding truth, "commoners are the ones being kidnapped, my dearest little brother—why should nobles squander time and resources on a handful of commoners?" Malrik locked eyes with Asher using his piercing blue gaze, subtly urging him to shed his innocence and face the world's harsh brutality, "the Zarethorn Empire alone has over twenty billion citizens, and that’s just a rough estimate—the real figure could soar much higher." Malrik halted, then demanded sharply, "why should the noble society fret over a few thousand or even millions of missing commoners lost among billions?"

Malrik’s words boomed through Asher’s head like thunder, echoing relentlessly as he froze in place, his brain stalling without a comeback. Unbidden, his mind flashed to the Emperor’s attempt to probe and twist his memories. Could such a ruler, whose knee-jerk reaction was to toy with a Duke’s child—a shining star in the dreaded Wargrave—genuinely care about mere commoners?

"The noble society doesn’t care—they’d only unsheathe their swords if this group targeted them like before," Malrik declared definitively, laying bare the brutal reality of their world. Those at the top simply ignored the masses below, craving only greater dominance to safeguard their thrones and bloodlines for generations, nothing else.

Asher remained rooted, speechless, unable to muster a counter or even utter a syllable. He’d been foolishly imposing Ethan’s modern logic from Earth onto Crymora’s people, forcing a mismatched lens onto this alien truth.

True, Earth harbored its share of depraved souls hiding in plain sight, but governments there at least made an effort, success or not. Here in Crymora, however, apathy ruled supreme, and commoners stayed blissfully unaware, cut off from intel of such scale anyway.

In that instant, ignorance truly equaled bliss.

At least for the commoners—not the nobles, since Asher knew the elite stayed hyper-alert against this shadowy threat, especially when their own necks were at risk.

"What of Father, doesn’t he care? What of you, big brother?" Asher probed, his thoughts reeling at how nobles could tolerate such atrocities unchecked.

Yet as the words left his lips, Asher’s conscience slapped him with hypocrisy, recalling how the father-son duo from ‘The Consumed’ had detonated themselves, slaughtering four hundred he’d just saved—and he hadn’t flinched at the carnage unfolding before him.

Malrik sighed while replying, "there you go asking naive questions again, little brother. It seems the terms and conditions of the True Awakening have to be increased," he remarked aloud, a hint of playful mockery in his voice.

Facing Asher squarely, Malrik declared, "Father—I can’t read his mind or heart—but if even one soul, ant, lizard, commoner, adventurer, Knight, or ancient corpse vanished from Wargrave Ducal lands, ‘The Consumed’ would face annihilation by Wargrave fury," his eyes blazing with hidden eagerness, as if yearning for the group to blunder into their domain by accident or hubris.

"As for me," Malrik pressed on, "while I won’t hunt them down out of boredom, if fate crosses our paths—deliberate or chance—they’ll learn why none have survived to boast of facing me," he finished with ironclad certainty, his aura suggesting power beyond Crymora’s bounds, held in check lest his katana alone shatter the realm.