A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

"BOOM!!!!!!!!!" The first loud bang after the earthquake suddenly rang out.

The sound was so loud that Qasim was so frightened that he sat down on the ground.

“Found you.” Bray, carrying two swords, stood on the fallen door and looked down at Qasim.

Actually, Bray didn't search much, because after the strong tremors, only this basement was left intact.

Qasim had nowhere else to go but this place.

“You’ve got the wrong person,” Qasim said.

“…” Bray thought Qasim was treating him like a fool.

Despite the dramatic changes in Qasim's appearance, who else could be here besides Qasim now?

Not to mention, Bray is also shrewd; his ability to see through illusions is not just talk.

Well, of course, Xinyan also got humiliated by Marek once, but that was the only time.

"Clang!" The sword was pressed against Qasim's forehead.

"..." Qasim's forehead was covered in cold sweat, and a look of panic appeared on his old face.

"So what if you find me?!" he suddenly yelled.

"What right do you have to kill me?" After being terrified to the extreme, Qasim became angry.

That's right, why should I have the right to kill this inexplicable adventurer in front of me?

Forget about Angela or 112, Bray is just an outsider, what hatred could there be for him?

"Did you see me kill someone? No!"

"I just wanted to do research!" Kasim said, becoming increasingly self-righteous, then tightly hugged the huge rosebud of the mother's lower body, his body trembling slightly.

Bray also fell into deep thought.

“That’s right, are you judging me because of some sudden surge of righteousness? That’s ridiculous!” Qasim continued, and seeing that Bray was thinking, he stopped trembling so much.

"What kind of messenger of justice do you think you are? You're just an irrelevant adventurer!"

In fact, Kasim could also see that although Bray saved Angelia and Diman, they were definitely not close friends.

In other words, from Bray's perspective, he had no reason to kill himself.

Qasim hadn't expected that he would actually make Bray hesitate.

Fortunately, Bray isn't the type to kill without a fight, which is why Qasim's life has been spared until now.

Reasoning is good; Qasim also likes to reason.

Just as Qasim breathed a sigh of relief, Bray spoke up.

"Okay, I admit you have a point."

It must be said that Qasim's words make some sense; Bray's position indeed doesn't give him the right to judge this madman.

Only Angela and 112 are qualified.

Moreover, what caused Clinton's chaos was not so much Qasim, but rather the matrix itself.

For Clinton's safety, and if there were an order to the killings, the mother should be eliminated first, followed by Qasim.

“But do you really not know what you are?” Bray looked at Qasim, his expression somewhat subtle for some reason.

“What are you saying…” Qasim swallowed hard.

“You are not yourself at all, no, you are not even a human being,” Bray said.

"What are you saying!" Qasim roared in fury; Bray's words had touched on something he was unwilling to admit.

“You really didn’t know?” Bray sighed.

"Shut up!" Qasim, who was still terrified, picked up the junk around him and threw it at Bray.

Bray was naturally able to dodge it; it would be strange if he got hit.

He gave Qasim a deep look; although he had a body, it was made of plants.

Every strand of "muscle" inside is essentially a plant.

And what was stuffed inside was a memory of Qasim.

You might say it has its own will, but it absolutely has no soul.

However, judging from Qasim's performance, nothing unusual could be found.

Of course, this was while he was still a ghost.

Anyone can now see that Qasim is missing something, but probably no one can quite put their finger on what it is.

After all, who can truly understand the soul?

If Qasim had not restored himself to a vibrant state, he would not have been aware of the incongruity of the missing three elements.

Yes, Qasim also wondered if he wasn't "himself" at all.

And Bray realized that this Kasim... was probably just a "thing" created by Jonathan.

"I am Kasim! I am the great noble mage!!!" Kasim stood up and chanted some spells.

Just as Bray was about to stop Qasim, countless thorns lashed out at him, forcing him to retreat.

"Tsk." Bray clicked his tongue in a dejected manner, realizing that things seemed to have gotten worse because of his brooding.

Perhaps it's better to strike decisively.

Well, it's just a thought; he can't actually do it.

If people could kill anyone they thought was bad, the world would be in utter chaos.

If someone believes they are right and arbitrarily becomes the knife stabbing at "wrong," it can lead to a series of mistakes.

All of the above are things that happen when one selfishly tries to satisfy their own sense of justice.

So how do we exercise justice?

I don't know, Bray doesn't understand these profound things at all.

He simply felt that instead of seeking "justice" through pure killing, it would be better to help children find their parents.

Even if it's done intentionally to satisfy hypocrisy, it's still good at something.

In truth, there are very few saints who are genuinely and purely good from the bottom of their hearts.

Unfortunately, it is precisely because Bray thought this way that Qasim is still safe and sound, and is even planning to do dangerous things.

"My dear wife, do you want to vent your restlessness?" Qasim said in a deep voice, touching the beautiful woman whose eyes were slightly open.

An excess of vitality can make the mother prone to irritability.

It's just unknown what Angelia and 112 did to make the mother body so stable.

At this moment, this mania was triggered by Qasim.

"BOOM!!!!!!!" The once quiet plants suddenly went berserk, destroying the basement.

The beautiful woman remained so quiet throughout, unlike the raging plants.

This basement hasn't stood for a century because it's particularly sturdy.

It's just because the mother body didn't go berserk.

Qasim, riding on a thorn, stood beside the beautiful woman's upper body, looking at Bray with resentment.

“I am a living, breathing human being now,” Qasim said proudly, extending his arm, which was covered in extremely rough skin.

To say he's not even human? What a joke! He has his own thoughts and his own body.

If this is considered living, then what truly constitutes living?

Moreover, he is absolutely, definitely, Qasim himself, and there is no doubt about it.

“…” Bray looked up at the rampant thorns, but he wasn’t particularly surprised.

He appeared even more composed than when Qasim was chanting earlier.

Those dead fish eyes were dull and lifeless, like a puddle of water on the road.

It turns out it just triggered the mother organism's aggressiveness; it made Bray a little nervous just now.

Bray thought Qasim was trying to pull off something disastrous enough to destroy Clinton.

Based on what Bray heard and saw, he roughly understood that the beautiful woman was Angelia's mother and Qasim's wife.

Although her posture was so unusual, it did not change her identity.

Yes, no matter what, it can't change the fact that she's a beautiful woman.

She seemed to know this instinctively, and during the earthquake, she protected Angelia and Diman.

She did not help Angelia when Qasim threatened her or when Angelia gritted her teeth and tried to escape.

Because Angelia's safety was not threatened, and Angelia is immortal.

When the earthquake struck, and Angelia was likely buried by the terrifying tremors, she protected Angelia with thorns.

Being alive is one thing, being buried is another.

Neither Angelia nor Diman had the power to lift the mud and rocks burying them.

Who knows how long this burial will last?

Whether unconsciously or consciously, the beautiful woman in the basement quietly protected Angelia, and incidentally, Diman, without anyone knowing.

These things had naturally already happened outside.

Now, something even more important is unfolding in the basement.

"Clang!!!" The sword was swung out, and thorns fell all at once.

This time, the plant that was killed was not one that gained life through contact, but a part of the mother plant itself.

The thorns that were cut down, though they didn't wither instantly, didn't grow back either.

Once it's cut off, it's cut off.

The basement was filled with thorns, which launched a relentless attack on Bray, but in the end, they were all cut down without exception.

It's not fancy; it just has a very ordinary blade.

It's so simple that you'd think they were just mowing the lawn.

Qasim's eyelids twitched violently; the power of the Mother was incomparable to anything he had seen before.

However, why does it always feel like cutting through the mother body with Brutes is easier than cutting through the thorns and roses beforehand?

If Qasim knew that he was being suppressed because the Matrix's power was closer to a "concept" than before, he would probably vomit blood.

"Never mind... consider it a way to send you to the afterlife," Bray muttered to himself as he stopped wielding his sword.

Qasim heard it, and heard it very clearly.

"You said you would help me pass on to the afterlife?" Kasim knew that the words came from the Eastern Continent and understood what they meant.

He was angry precisely because he knew this.

Are they treating him like some kind of ghost? Like some kind of vengeful spirit?

He is not one of those dead things; he is a vibrant life.

He clutched his throbbing forehead and stared coldly at Bray.

That sense of detachment from memory became even more pronounced after Bray reminded him of it.

This made Qasim increasingly uneasy.

No, he's not some incomprehensible being; he's a person, a person who has been resurrected.

Jonathan can definitely prove that.

If he found Jonathan, Kasim would definitely press him for details, and then he got a positive answer.

That's right, even without being asked, he had already prepared the answer in his mind.

He refused to believe the truth even in the slightest.

"Yes, to help the deceased pass on."