Warhammer, I'm a nanny, not your father!

Their faces were filled with confusion because they had no direction.

When survival becomes a luxury, even the most lofty ideals are a joke.

You have to let them eat first before you talk to them about their ideals.

"We're back, open the door." Koz's voice sounded in Sevatar's ears.

Sevatar's heart skipped a beat. When did he come up?

Fili was quicker than him, and she excitedly called the orphans to open the door.

Wop returned to the camp, bringing more children with him.

The kids were all dragging large and small bags of loot seized from various gangs.

The gang kids are full of confusion and fear, while the orphans are full of expectation and curiosity.

The former knows that his fate will be miserable, while the latter comes to join the gang and they don't care what Wop wants them to do as long as they can have a meal.

Dorothy was gloomy in a happy way.

She wants to make Bottom Nest a better place, so she actively educates children, whether they are scavengers or gangsters.

But there are too many children for her to teach them all.

Wop saw her distress and said to her, "You don't need to teach them to understand, you only need to teach them to obey."

Dorothy hesitated; this was not in line with her original intention.

Wop asked, "Do you think Coze and I are good people?"

Dorothy nodded. They killed many people, but they killed to make the world a better place. Of course they were good people.

"The masses are blind," Woppe said. "Once a person is in a group, their IQ drops significantly. To gain recognition, they are willing to abandon right and wrong, trading their intelligence for a sense of belonging that makes them feel safe."

"If they had joined a gang, they would have done evil to gain recognition and accept the meaning of evil. But now that they have joined us, you just need to let them follow us. Even if they don't understand what we are doing now, they are objectively doing good things. As long as time passes, they will enjoy this sense of recognition, spontaneously start doing good things, and truly understand why they do good things."

Dorothy realized the fatal flaw in this logic, and it made sense.

If Wop and Cozee are good people, the children who follow them will also become good people in order to gain their approval.

But what if Wop and Curze turned out to be bad guys?

Dorothy was worried, but she soon realized her worries were unnecessary.

If even they become bad people, then the world will really be hopeless.

Instead of worrying about the future, it is better to seize the present.

"Welcome, sinners." Curze faced the children, his tall, pale figure hidden in the darkness. "You are all guilty, and I will still give you a chance to atone for your sins. But remember, you only have one chance."

Chapter 21 Gang Wars

"dross!"

The boy beat the scavenger on the ground with an iron rod, hitting him in the crotch again and again, smashing his lower body into a bloody mess.

"Stop it, Vic! Have you forgotten our laws? You can't torture him like this!"

His belated companions hurriedly grabbed him and seized his iron rod.

"Bah!" the boy spat. "Blanche gave him food, but he actually wanted to rape her. Blanche is his daughter! Shouldn't I beat him? Killing him would be too easy for him!"

The disheveled girl tugged at his sleeve and sobbed, "Stop it, Vic, it's not worth it."

The others looked guilty. They were a team, and it was just a blink of an eye that gave the scavenger the opportunity to drag the girl into the dark alley.

If Vic hadn't discovered it in time, they couldn't imagine what kind of torture the girl would have suffered.

"Forgive me, I was wrong, Blanche, Blanche, forgive me..."

The scavenger burst into tears and knelt on the ground begging for mercy, enduring the severe pain.

But the children's eyes were cold and showed no mercy.

The other boy pressed the knife into Vic's hand and whispered, "Kill him and get rid of the body before we get caught."

"What did you find?" A cold and hoarse voice sounded in their ears.

The boys froze in their places, looking up at the pale giant in the darkness.

"I smell evil," Coates said. "You're torturing him? The law allows you to kill him, but it doesn't allow you to torture him."

"Sir, it's not Vic's fault. It's my fault." The girl cried and pleaded for Vic.

Koz shook his head: "No, no, no, girl, you are the victim, I see it clearly."

He looked at Vic, "As for you, let me think about how I should punish you."

Vic lowered his head with a gloomy look in his eyes: "At least let me kill him first before I die."

"Kill him." Koz nodded.

Vic didn't hesitate and slashed the scavenger's neck with a knife.

In the past few months, Midnight Haunter has wiped out more than a hundred gangs of all sizes in the vicinity, and its territory has expanded a hundredfold accordingly.

But their territory is too large and their core members are too few to effectively manage all the territories.

Therefore, there are always people who are lucky enough to think they can escape legal sanctions, and only death can deter them.

Vic smiled at the girl, then stabbed the dagger into his heart.

A large hand grasped the dagger.

Vic looked at Cozee in horror, his hand bleeding.

"Suicide is a serious crime. I didn't allow you to die." Curze pulled the dagger out of his hand by the blade and said slowly, "You have committed a crime, but death is not your punishment. Go to Sevatar, he will tell you how to atone for your sins."

Vic lowered his head, the girl looked at Koz gratefully, and the others also breathed a sigh of relief.

Curze disappeared, just as he had come, without a trace.

"You didn't kill him?" Wop was surprised.

"I don't like you talking to me in that tone." Coze frowned.

Wop said sadly: "The child has grown up and started to dislike me."

"I don't like you talking like that even more!" Koz raised his voice.

"Are you ordering me around?"

Coz: "I'm asking you."

"Okay." Wop nodded, and Coze relaxed.

"Of course I won't kill him. Anger made him lose his mind, but he did nothing wrong. Compared with real torture, his actions are nothing. But I can't let him go either. The law is the law, and no one can trample on the law. This is what you taught me. The law needs to be upheld in order to protect the people."

"What if I'm the one who broke the law?" Wop asked deliberately.

Coates was silent. Just when Wop thought he didn't want to answer, Coates said, "You don't have to be a human being."

Wop's face was dark. Are you making a pun or scolding me?

Coz didn't give him a chance to be sarcastic and continued, "Don't let them torture people. Give the criminals a quick death. This isn't about shielding those criminals, but about preventing them from committing crimes. Torturing people is addictive."

"Are you setting a limit for them?"

Coates nodded: "Maybe the bottom line is a bit too high, but I think it is necessary."

They were his foundation, and a strong wall must be built on a solid foundation, and he would not allow his foundation to rot.

He saw the boy become a cruel butcher who used the power of the law to torture others for fun.

That was a future that Coze could not tolerate. He would not punish him for something that had not happened. This was what Wop taught him, but he had to make sure that such a future would not happen, so the boy had to accept the punishment and he had to understand where he was wrong.

After killing hundreds of people, the Night Haunters ended their day's patrol and returned to the camp.

Fili had been waiting at the door, happily greeting them.

"Teacher Wop." Fili walked on the other side of Wop, side by side with them. "Some of the new kids admitted that they were undercover agents sent by other gangs. They told us that the other gangs are planning to unite and launch a general attack on us and encircle us."

Coates: "It's not easy for the mafia to reach a consensus. There must be instructions from others behind this."

"I thought so too." Wop nodded.

The order of the Midnight Ghost has already occupied half of the bottom nest, and it will not be long before it controls the entire bottom nest.

But they had killed almost all the people, leaving no gang members alive. Scavengers could survive by obeying the law, and only children could join them.

Because children are more malleable, they still have the possibility of atonement.

The scavengers and orphans who don't want to be killed or kill anyone naturally turn their hearts to the Midnight Haunter, and there are always groups of refugees running to their territory.

But in the eyes of gang members alone, the arrival of the Midnight Haunter is equivalent to a catastrophe.

No gang could withstand their offensive, and all attacked gangs would be destroyed within a day.

This prompted the gangs neighboring the Night Haunter to abandon their territory and run away, while other gangs also united under the pressure of the loss of their own territory.

But it is impossible for these hundreds of gangs to reach a consensus so quickly. There must be a certain voice that suppressed other dissents and made them decide to launch a general attack on the Midnight Haunter.

This voice could not have come from the Underhive, because the largest gang in the Underhive is only of a similar size to the Blood Claws and Hadrids. They do not have the courage to fight against the Night Haunters, and they only unite to protect themselves.

The upper level intervened in the gang war in the lower nest, which was a very unusual signal.

"The upper echelons of power feel threatened." Coze let out a low laugh, but his eyes held only coldness. "They don't want order in this world at all. Their evil deeds are truly disgusting."

Chapter 22 City of Eternal Night

"I will be responsible for infiltration, and you will be responsible for attack." Koz announced his battle plan, which was simple and efficient.

Sevatar nodded. They had done this dozens of times and were very familiar with it.

Koz would kill the gang leaders and open the gates to the gang camps, where they would face a group of commandless rabble.

Even though this time is different from the past, almost all the other gangs in the Bottom Nest have united together, and their strength is far stronger than that of the Night Haunter.

But Curze will succeed, and Night Haunter will triumph, because they represent justice!

Koz went to inspect his territory. He wanted to eliminate all unstable factors before leaving.

Scavengers who take advantage of the situation will be killed, and children with evil intentions will be drafted into the stormtroopers. They will all have a chance for redemption before committing crimes.

Coz stood on the high ground, while the older children stood guard in the darkness, alert to the threats that lay in the darkness.

Only a few houses had the luxury of promethium lighting, where Dorothy and her students would teach other children, where they would learn about law, morality, and loyalty.

Curze saw his foundations growing, but until they grew into the mighty walls of the city, they still needed the Night Haunter's protection.

He also saw them destroyed overnight, the young flames extinguished by the torrential rain from the sky before they could grow.

Fili was dead, Dorothy was dead, Sevatar was dead, Ben was dead too, leaving only a pile of young corpses.

Very few of them escaped the pursuit and fled into the depths of darkness.

But the flame in their hearts was extinguished, and the world lost its last chance.

"I won't let it happen."

Coze has been seeing more and more hallucinations, and he is completely unable to control his talent.

Sometimes he couldn't even hear what people were saying, their faces eroded by years they hadn't even lived.

He is witnessing the future at every moment, even if it hasn't happened yet and may never happen.

Coze looked at Wop, who stood quietly beside Coze. He was the anchor for Coze to find the present from the overlapping future.

"Do you know Shakespeare?" asked Wop.

"A poet from ancient Terra, whose works I have little knowledge of."

Coze has become accustomed to Wop's jumping thoughts. He always says things that seem to have nothing to do with reality. Coze thinks this is probably because Wop can also see the future.

He didn't know what kind of future Wop saw, but Wop rarely talked about the future, and Coz was sure it wouldn't be a good memory.

Wop: "What's past is prologue, from Shakespeare's play The Tempest."

"We are young here, and the future is promising. Everything that has not yet been achieved is a glorious chapter."

"Is this what Shakespeare said?"

“No, but I think it’s quite philosophical.”