“It's the adults who are being deluded.” Logan Sullivan quietly lifted his eyes. “What is fairness, what is equality? In this world, whenever one person feels things are fair, it must be built upon someone else feeling things are unfair. When you can't survive, equality means eating your fill and staying warm like everyone else. When you have enough to eat and wear, equality becomes having dignity like others. Once you have dignity, you get restless and start feeling superior, insisting on having more than others before you're satisfied. Until you hit rock bottom, when does it ever end? In the end, whether it's equality or inequality, isn't it all up to ourselves to decide?”

Soulwarden was speechless for a moment, then let out a low laugh. “Twisted logic.”

Logan Sullivan chuckled lightly, brushed past the topic, and asked, “After Zane Shaw succeeded in the rebellion, killed your father, wiped the names from the altar, and the Hanga people no longer had slaves, what happened then?”

“After that, all matters big and small in the tribe were decided by each family’s head stepping forward to represent their household and giving their opinion. Everyone would discuss, and whichever proposal had the most support would win,” Zach Warren said. “This was Zane Shaw’s idea. He never went to school, never left the snowy mountains, yet he understood the democracy that later generations would advocate... It shows that what people desire is, more or less, the same in any era.”

Logan Sullivan stretched out one long leg, rested his hands on his knee, sitting in a slouch with no regard for posture, but his words were sharp as knives, each one cutting deeper than the last. Hearing this, he suddenly said, “Is that how you died?”

Zach Warren was caught off guard, stunned for a moment, and then the light in her eyes suddenly dimmed.

Just when everyone thought she wouldn’t speak, Zach Warren suddenly said, “I... At that time, I had nowhere to go, so I stayed at Zane Shaw’s house, living under someone else’s roof. But I couldn’t do anything. When I was little, my mother only taught me how to dress up and command slaves. I couldn’t work, couldn’t hunt, and even managing household chores was a mess... A girl from the tribe wanted to marry Zane Shaw, so she asked her father to propose, but Zane Shaw refused. The girl ran away in anger, left the snowy mountains, and when the tribe found her, she was already dead. They said she slipped and fell down a slope, hitting her head on a big rock. Her father started to hate me, joined forces with other families, and gathered the tribe, saying I was the daughter of the dog chief, born with witchcraft. They forgave me and let me live by luck, but I was unrepentant, lazy and gluttonous every day, still occupying their hero Zane Shaw. Out of jealousy, I supposedly used witchcraft to curse his daughter to death, so they wanted to... wanted to behead me.”

Zach Warren’s shoulders suddenly began to tremble—she had once truly believed her father was wrong. In the heart of a young girl, her people should not have been enslaved; they were human too, and shouldn’t have lived and died so humbly, at the mercy of others. Like Zane Shaw, she had hoped they could live prosperous lives, hoped they could be equal, free, and happy.

Yet those very people she sympathized with and loved turned out to resent her.

“The girl’s father asked everyone to raise their hands. Those who didn’t move meant they had no opinion or didn’t want me executed. Those who raised their hands agreed to my beheading...”

The words “beheading” broke with emotion, and Zach Warren could no longer hold back and began to cry.

That day, the hall was packed, everyone’s faces full of satisfaction, hands raised in dense, uneven rows. From the high platform, they looked like the claws of evil spirits swaying in the deepest river of the underworld. Almost everyone raised their hand, staring at the girl tied in the center—cold, numb, ignorant, and cruel.

They had reached a shocking consensus—to kill her, to cut off her head.

Even if there were a thousand lights in her heart, they would all be extinguished, not a trace of ash left.

No one remembered what she had done... or perhaps, what she had done was only ever seen as having ulterior motives.

Zach Warren’s tears fell in big drops to the ground, instantly turning into wisps of smoke and vanishing into the air. Her figure grew thinner and thinner—she had been dead for over three hundred years, long since out of tears, but now the pain in her heart was so great it was burning away her very soul.

“Don’t cry.” Logan Sullivan gently reached out to lift her chin, wiped away her tears with his fingers, a soul-stabilizing talisman pinched between them. With a soft command, he pressed it to her forehead, sealing her “tears” so they could no longer fall. She stared with those almost innocent big eyes, meeting the man’s gentle, veiled gaze, as if stunned for a moment.

Logan Sullivan took out the Soul Mirror watch and said softly, “Come inside.”

Zach Warren suddenly had the feeling that he knew everything, all the truth.

She was dazed for a moment, then felt a gentle but irresistible force pulling her into the now-stopped Soul Mirror. She heard Logan Sullivan say quietly, “I’ll let you out again when it’s dark.”

Zach Warren vanished on the spot, leaving Logan Sullivan and Soulwarden suddenly silent.

Logan Sullivan closed his eyes wearily, as if exhausted.

Soulwarden was silent for a while, then reached out and patted his shoulder. “Don’t sleep yet. You were injured by the Terra-Spike. If you sleep now, the soul I just stabilized might scatter. Rest later—does your chest still feel tight?”

Logan Sullivan rubbed his brow hard and said hoarsely, “It’s alright. That brat’s medicine was too strong, I’ve been dizzy all day.”

Soulwarden said, “How about I take you back first, then come back for the Terra-Spike?”

Logan Sullivan waved his hand, clearly forcing himself to stay alert. Finally, he couldn’t help but say painfully, “Can I have a cigarette?”

Soulwarden: “...”

Logan Sullivan took his silence as consent, quickly lit one, and took a couple of deep drags like a heavy smoker, not letting Soulwarden catch even a whiff of secondhand smoke. Only after exhaling did he feel more awake. “I’m fine. Spitting blood is detoxifying anyway. I just didn’t know that was the Terra-Spike earlier, so I was caught off guard. Don’t worry about me, just hurry and get that thing back. Last time, the Reincarnation Sundial was snatched first—don’t let me hold you up.”

Soulwarden stiffened. “You saw it last time?”

Logan Sullivan gave him a strange look. “I’m not blind—besides, the underworld issued a kill order for the ghost beast. Who would dare stir up trouble right under your nose?”

Soulwarden fell silent. Logan Sullivan immediately sensed his difficulty and said, “Oh, I was just making conversation. You don’t have to tell me. I’m in charge of the human world, so if anything spills over to my side, please give me a heads-up.”

Soulwarden gave a low reply. Logan Sullivan stood up, stubbed out his cigarette in the snow, seeming revived. Then he fished out a crumpled talisman from his pocket, rolled it into a small ball, and popped it into his mouth. “Ugh, so hard to chew. Let’s go, after you?”

Soulwarden nodded, gathering up the swirling gray mist, and the Terra-Spike appeared before them again.

Even after hastily chewing a soul-stabilizing talisman, Logan Sullivan could still feel the... soul-shaking hostility and murderous aura emanating from the Terra-Spike. He stuck one hand in his pocket, lifted his chin, and stood straight, staring at the massive object. Only now did he notice that the cross-section of the Terra-Spike was octagonal—precise, sharp, piercing straight into the earth.

Soulwarden walked forward a dozen steps, stopped, and pressed his hands together. After a moment, a wild wind suddenly swept the ground. His hood and black robe whipped in the gale as if about to be torn away, but he remained unmoved.

Then Soulwarden shouted in a low voice, “Mountain soul!”

The Terra-Spike began to tremble, then the ground, and then it seemed even the snowy mountains shook. Thunder rumbled from the distant peaks, as if a god imprisoned for ages beneath the cold rock had been awakened, letting out a terrifying low moan. The sky darkened as if it were night.

Suddenly, shadowy figures seemed to flicker around them. Logan Sullivan struggled to keep his eyes open in the fierce wind and saw mirage-like phantoms flash across the sky.

He saw Zach Warren, looking sixteen or seventeen, innocent and almost still a child, standing outside the crowd. A young, handsome man in tattered clothes stood on high, as if sensing something, turned to look at her from afar, and their eyes met. On his bloodstained face, a nearly pure smile suddenly appeared.

Then he roared, swinging a huge iron shovel at the great stone stele on the altar. At his feet, the hillside was stained red with blood, countless corpses strewn below.

The living craned their necks to watch his actions.

The man leveled the stele, paused in silence, then suddenly shouted something in a hoarse voice. Logan Sullivan couldn’t understand the words, but he understood the meaning.

The man, covered in blood and mud, had won, but there was no joy on his face—only grief and anger. For a people oppressed for a thousand years, the first breath of freedom was so overwhelming it nearly brought him to tears.