Moren turned his head and saw a man standing beside him, having appeared silently at some point.
He looked fairly old, with white hair combed neatly, but his face still showed the handsome contours of his youth.
He wore a pair of glasses, and behind the lenses, his gaze was deep and calm, as if he could see into a person’s heart.
He was dressed simply in a white shirt and dark pants, with an old jacket thrown casually over it.
A half-empty bottle of liquor dangled from his hand.
He looked like a down-on-his-luck old drunkard—but one who hadn’t lost his dignity.
“Dark King Rayleigh!”
The moment the name left his mouth, Moren himself was surprised.
The image of the legendary first mate from stories he once knew—bold and unrestrained, both wise and courageous—quickly overlapped with the silver-haired man before him, who seemed down-and-out yet possessed eyes as deep as an abyss.
Rayleigh, who had been about to leave, paused mid-step.
He turned his head slightly, and a clear flicker of surprise showed in his eyes behind the glasses.
He looked Moren up and down, and the corner of his mouth curled into an intrigued smile.
“Oh?
You recognize me?
Interesting.”
“I thought I was hiding pretty well on this island, barely even appearing in the papers anymore…
I didn’t expect a young man who just arrived to recognize me.”
His tone held no tension or wariness.
Instead, he seemed to have discovered an interesting puzzle.
But he didn’t press further.
“Well, none of that matters anyway.”
He turned to face Moren, the bottle in his hand swaying casually.
“Kid, that sort of thing you just saw?
It’s common here.”
He raised the bottle and gestured vaguely toward the street and the distant mangroves.
“More than you could ever count.”
“If you can’t get used to it and keep wearing your emotions so plainly on your face when you look at them…
that’s very dangerous.”
Moren understood what Rayleigh meant.
The disgust and murderous intent he’d felt had been nearly tangible, far too obvious.
If there were any guards and their attendants with keen perception, or if a Celestial Dragon had happened to notice, it would have spelled enormous trouble for Moren.
In an environment where everyone kept their heads down and eyes lowered, that kind of expression was as conspicuous as a lighthouse in the dead of night.
And the Celestial Dragons and their guards and lackeys would never tolerate an “ant” looking at them that way.
His thoughts churning, Moren took a deep breath and forced himself to suppress the rage and cold fury boiling in his chest.
The emotions in his eyes slowly faded, hidden beneath a calm surface.
“I understand.
Thank you for the warning.” Moren spoke softly but sincerely.
Rayleigh watched him adjust his state so quickly, and a hint of barely perceptible approval flickered in his eyes.
But his tone remained flat.
“It’s too early for thanks.
Wait until you make it off this island in one piece.
Then you can thank me.”
He took another swig of liquor, his gaze seeming to pierce through Moren’s forced calm and see the embers still burning deep within.
“Until your fists—or your strength—can support the thoughts in your head and let you vent the fire in your belly, it’s best not to act rashly.” Rayleigh lowered his voice slightly, a note of advice and restraint in it.
“Acting recklessly here will only get you killed faster.
I don’t want to see your face by some gutter or trash heap while I’m out taking a walk in a few days.”
The words were blunt, even harsh, but they were genuine advice, undiluted.
Having said that, Rayleigh didn’t linger.
Bottle in hand, he turned unsteadily and walked away with a casual gait, blending into the crowd that was beginning to flow again within just a few steps.
His old jacket and flowing white hair quickly disappeared among the colorful bubbles and bustling noise, as if he had never been there.
Moren stood alone for a long time in silence.
On the street, people were already numbly cleaning up the blood, dragging away the two bodies that had been alive just moments ago.
The noblewoman’s ornate dress was roughly torn at the collar, the slave’s gaunt limbs dragging on the ground, leaving dark red trails.
Those around either quickened their pace or murmured a few comments, then went back to their business.
The dreamy bubbles still rose.
Children’s laughter drifted from afar.
Everything was quickly “returning to normal,” burying the raw violence and death beneath the surface of prosperity.
This sense of normalcy suffocated Moren even more than the atrocity itself.
He didn’t leave immediately.
Instead, he watched the direction where the slave’s body was being dragged and followed at a distance.
He watched them dump the body unceremoniously beside a pile of garbage in a remote alleyway, like disposing of oversized trash.
After the cleaners left, Moren walked over.
He used the burlap cloth that had wrapped the stone slab to drag the gaunt, scar-covered stranger’s body.
The body was terrifyingly light, like a dead branch.
He carried it to a relatively secluded area near the mangrove roots, where the ground was soft.
He dug a deep enough hole.
He placed the body inside, still wrapped in the burlap, arranging it as best he could.
Then he covered it with the dug-up soil until the ground was level again.
No coffin inside.
No headstone above.
Just ordinary dirt, and a few unobtrusive little pale purple flowers he pulled from nearby.
“I don’t know your name or where you came from…” Moren said quietly to the small mound of earth.
“But at least now you’re laid to rest.
May you never come to a hellish place like this again in your next life.”
After doing all this, the knot of anger in Moren’s chest didn’t dissipate—it only grew heavier.
The good mood from finding the strange stone slab and other knickknacks at the antique shop had long vanished, replaced by a cold sense of reality and powerlessness.
He watched the colorful bubbles floating or bursting in midair, his brow furrowed.
He wandered aimlessly through the labyrinthine streets and mangrove roots of Sabaody.
His mind was chaos: the ugly face of the Celestial Dragon, Rayleigh’s meaningful warning, the hollow, despairing eyes of the slave.
Before his dream adventure had even begun, he had already come face to face with the twisted, grotesque nature of this world.
Lost in thought, Moren wandered into a quieter area with slightly shabbier buildings—seemingly a mix of residential zone and small workshops.
Fewer pedestrians passed through.
Then, as he walked past an alley entrance cluttered with odds and ends—
The sharp crack of a whip echoed from deep within the alley, mixed with stifled, youthful whimpers of pain.
The sound pierced through his thoughts like a needle.
Another whip…
Just how many corners like this were there on Sabaody Archipelago, repeating the same brutality?
His hand on the hilt of his sword at his waist tightened.
Add the novel to your collection so you don’t miss future chapters.