Why Did You Summon Me?

Baiyi delegated the project’s pitching to the Engineer Walker, while he quietly retreated to the back, watching in amusement. It was befitting for the project leader to pitch, as it was he who knew how his creations functioned.

Baiyi used the opportunity to sort through his loot.

A mysterious armor set that could be a legendary Divine Regalia; a highly-valuable, masterfully-crafted, high-end sorcerer staff; a combination of super rare raw materials; and, Vidomina’s incredibly hot sexy mother… Alright, maybe that  last one was not exactly his reward, but he had managed to gather way more items than he had previous years. This was a result of the additional five sponsored seats he had added.

The Engineer Walker himself was having quite a blast. Imitating the persuasion and rally-hyping techniques from charismatic speakers back on Earth, he easily jacked up whatever level of interests these nobles had for marionettes, even though many of them were already dabbling in the business. The Engineer Walker sold his dream so hard that one could almost see the nobles’ eyes widened and sparkled at the prospect of being “the pioneers who had looked ahead and into the future when everyone else’s still looking at their feet; The revolutionaries who usher the dawn of intelligent machines in service of their equally brilliant men!”

Being completely unfamiliar with charismatic, tech-selling sweet-talkers from Earth, these nobles’ minds were that easily blown away. The Engineer Walker was just one t-shirt and a pair of jeans away from jumping onto the stage, his arms flailing enthusiastically and comically, shouting, “Are you reeeeeeeaaaaaady?! ” to a hyped crowd.

Naturally, both the speaker and the would-be investors’ hope ballooned until they were mutually infecting each other with a sort of sparkling optimism which skipped over the very, very real technical difficulties of the project.

Instead, the crowd was quick to harp endlessly on the eventual marketing channels, sales, and profit margins. They were absorbed in the rosy-colored future the Engineer Walker had painted, with their investment returning to them by tenfold or even ten-odd folds…

Still, the Engineer Walker decided to give even more. In a riling, excitement-brimming voice he promised to gift every single noble in the room his latest marionette once the project had reached its completion!

The promise swept the nobles away. They recalled the magnificent stride of the spider-marionette in the demonstration and how it had easily decimated an area with powerful attacks not unlike a strike of a forbidden spell… With a machine like this serving their families, who do they even need to fear anymore? How could they lose should they face a conflict?

If they managed to obtain even more of these amazing marionettes, even that Grand Principal Hope would be no problem!

Unsurprisingly, the nobles were beyond themselves and so readily accepted to be an investor. Little did they knew a secret that their unsavvy minds would likely never catch. Every single marionette that the Engineer Walker had created bore a hidden overriding command. With a single activation from their creator, and the marionettes would instantly turn on their masters and joined Da Xue’s side, not unlike sleep agents…

Imagine being in the middle of a conflict only to have your best weapons turning a complete one-eighty and joined the enemies. What a terrifying user experience that would be!

This had been the Engineer’s plan all along, fooling fat cows into giving him money to build his own personal army. When the plan was first being introduced, Baiyi had rejected it on the grounds that it was too disingenuous and malicious, but of course, the Engineer Walker was not the slightest bit deterred. Now, he took this opportunity and repackaged his original idea into this current one…

None of that eluded Baiyi, and of course, he was certainly not going to point it out to the nobles. However, the Engineer’s plan did make the Fifth Walker think to himself, Those who dabble in big tech are almost always this evil no matter how nerdy and beta they look, huh?

With their eyes shining with hope and their minds still half-immersed in their futuristic dreams, the nobles left the hall, feeling fulfilled. The hall quickly emptied until there were just the Engineer Walker and Baiyi.

It was then when Baiyi finally spoke, “You really think this is a good idea?”

“What, you don’t think so?” The Engineer Walker replied nonchalantly. “Put it this way: if they remain our allies, they’ll never even come to this situation. But should they started harboring funny ideas, I would not want to find myself being aimed by one of my precious babes. It’s all just a small defensive mechanism after all, right? One that’s pretty necessary, too; You know how useless their pledge of loyalty can be. It’s not even hard to guess which one they would choose when it comes down to it: loyalty or personal interest.”

Baiyi nodded without a sign of demur. However, he warned, “You better not leave any clue behind. If anyone knew about this, well…”

“Don’t worry! I mean, don’t you trust my peerless professionality? With the technical knowledge you brought home, my understanding of marionette tech had gone way beyond this world’s very best by at least a century! I can give an average mechanic my blueprint right now, and it will be like watching a caveman studying a blueprint of a modern-day car! They won’t be able to understand anything in it, let alone realize the little trick I had implanted,” the Engineer Walker replied confidently. “This, right here, is the gap of technology!”

Baiyi nodded again, more surely this time. The two engaged in a few more small talks before they left the hall themselves.

In the moonlit night, Baiyi paced on the path leading to his own chalet, his mind drifting to the thought of the ancient armor.

It was then when his peripheral vision caught a tenebrous silhouette, seemingly cloaked in black, weaving in and out of the dark night like a specter. Baiyi halted his step instantly and bellowed, “Oy, you! Why are you out here at this hour?!”

That silhouette stopped and turned. Moonlight sprayed from above and traced out the face unprotected by the silhouette’s hood. It was a face of a metallic skull, illuminated even more by two pair of unnerving green orbs of flames on the two spots where the eyes should be.

With its trademark low, creaking voice, the Lich croaked, “I just came back from outside.”

“Outside campus at the dead of night?” Baiyi folded his arms. “You weren’t going out harming innocents again, were you?”

“Must you always regard me so distastefully? Have you never thought of trusting me anymore? I certainly think I deserve it,” The Lich murmured, pushing its skeletal finger into its cloak and pulled out the once-lent-never-returned Saint Quartz.

It used to be a beautiful staff proudly bearing a colorful and crystalline Saint Quartz on the top, but now it had turned completely green . In fact, the head of the staff was even surrounded by half-transparent ectoplasms, giving out a ghastly aura that made one wonder just how much hell this staff must have gone through to look like the equivalent of a man being possessed by demons…

No one would call this a Saint Quartz Staff anymore, because the more accurate name would be “Souls of the Enslaved v2.0 — which has now been updated with 100% more green”.

“Gone out to kill again?” Baiyi said sharply as he pondered on the idea of sending this dangerous ex-serial killer back to the Void. He had only not done that since the end of the Duat Invasion as a sign of appreciation for the fella’s enormous contribution and effort in containing the conflict. The idea of sending the Lich home instantly after it had outlived its purpose gave Baiyi a bad taste in his conscience, so he had withheld sending this bag of bone up until this point.

At the same time, however, no sane person who knew about this guy and its R-rated history dare guarantee that having the Lich roam outside would be hunky-dory, especially if unsupervised…

Instead of answering Baiyi directly, the Lich produced three more bags and chucked it to the former. Curious, the Fifth Walker opened it and found that all of them were stuffed full of gold coins.

The last one even had a sheet of papers on top, which prompted Baiyi to flip through them, squinting at the words illuminated by the moonlight. It was a sheet of arrest orders!

Some of these orders were under the state authority of the Empire, some were issued by various big-name associations, and even the Church had issued a few orders of their own. Most of the targeted criminals were, appropriately, degenerates such as power-hungry sorcerers who performed cruel human experiments, sociopathic alchemists who poisoned hundreds of people in the name of experiments, bandits who committed genocides, and even cold-hearted nobles whom, in their attempt to protect themselves, used the people they had sworn to protect to act as meat shields during the Duat Invasion.

It was clear that the undead were hardly the only antagonists in the Invasion. As always, whenever there were chaos and strife, there would always be the worst breed of humans who gleefully seize the chance to indulge in their personal sadism. Hence, after the cataclysm had passed, many organizations promptly identified those who had trampled the weak, burned their names on the papers, and sent those out for bounty hunters.

Many of the orders were crossed out by a large stamp of “COMPLETED”, signaling that many of them had already been maimed. Even more surprisingly, the name of the bounty hunter who took a lot of them down was named “Dexiphire”, which was really the Lich’s given name!

The Lich, renowned “sociopathic misanthrope”, actually removing the scums and plagues of society for the good of all?!

Sure, the Lich’s ultimate goal was to recreate his new version of the Souls of the Enslaves, but it was still so uncharacteristically noble of him that Baiyi could not say anything bad about it at all. [1]

There was something more in these arrest orders that made Baiyi raised his eyebrow. Among the well-deserving psychopaths and scums, there were also requests directed at surprising targets. Examples included the greatest emperor of the Ancient Rohlserlian Empire; The inventor of the art of Soul Armature, who also doubled as the pioneer in realm-explorations; The most gifted alchemical maverick in history. It appeared that every single Voidwalkers, collectively known as the Void Villains in these orders, each had a hefty bounty for their heads.

Even those who had any ties with the “Void Villains” were included in the arrest order, which meant that a normal, law-abiding citizen like Little Miss Undine was wanted. People with a tremendous amount of power such as the Southern Duke, however, evaded the call for his head.

Even among the “Void Villains”, there was only one who managed to score ten full scores in danger — which was represented by the skull icon — way more than the Archmage, who had 8 skulls, or the Demigod Lich Walker, who had 7 skulls. This man was described as the worst miscreant; The devil who spits on all things holy, good, and pure; The one who tramples and dances on others’ faith; The fraud who fools men with his silver tongue; The leader spawned from the darkest abyss, and the founder of Da Xue — Hope.

Not only was Baiyi’s arrest order filled with exaggerated monikers, but it was also filled with more details and warnings. Paragraphs after paragraphs were written to hammer in the idea that this particular demon was gifted in all kinds of combat arts and all manners of strategies, who also commanded high-end gears and weapons at his disposal; His methods were supposedly motivated purely by sadism, and that everyone — regardless of their skills — was advised to never try to face him alone. The more insured way to take him down, the paper said, was to first build an army so massive that could overwhelm a nation. [2]

Surprising exactly no one, these last few arrest orders on the Voidwalkers were issued by the Church.

“I can’t believe they would stoop to such an odious level!” Baiyi was bewildered. Was being this direct even a good thing for themselves? Was the Church just goading Baiyi to follow the Shadow Walker’s suggestion by bringing the Fairy with him to the Holy City during Grace Day?

“Heh! These orders are made in secrets. In fact, only the upper echelon in their little saintly club knows about this; Most of their lower-ranking members are blissfully unaware,” The Lich replied, its voice laden with dry and morbid amusement.

“But then… How did you get your hands on the Church’s arrest orders?” Baiyi asked, mildly mystified. He shook the other two bags of gold coins in his hand and added, “How did you even get your bounty, anyway?”

“Umbra,” The Lich replied curtly. It leaned closer to Baiyi and picked a few papers out from the pile, all of them bearing the same design and format Umbra used for their assassination missions.

Once again, among these missions was one specifically targeting Baiyi’s head. Succumbing to the Church’s pressure and their own professionality, Umbra had issued an assassination order directed to Baiyi; Notably, they set the difficulty level as “???”, and while the bounty was a hundred million gold coins, the recommended hunters were neither Scar-level nor Phantom-level assassins but simply, “nutjobs”…

Judging from the date, it seemed that this mission had been put out for at least two months by now, and yet no one had ever taken the job, as there was just no nutjob in Umbra.

More importantly, however, the date also showed that the Church had started asking for Baiyi’s death way, way earlier than the man himself had expected.