Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 1003: Section 649: Eastern Observations (Part 5)

Chapter 1003: Section 649: Eastern Observations (Part 5)

"The Thanan never believed in deities, that’s what my grandfather told me." Mr. Meng turned to look at the sea.

"But didn’t you say that you believe in Confucius and the True Lord?" Malin leaned back against the sea, sitting on the ship’s railing, he looked at Mr. Meng: "Is the True Lord really an Evil God?"

"Yes, it is an Evil God, for example, The Hangman, that’s a True Lord." Mr. Meng looked at Malin.

"I thought you would say something like the Hangman True Lord." Malin offered a cigarette to him.

Mr. Meng took the cigarette, lit it with a match, and took a satisfying puff: "True Lord, it’s just a title, like Confucius, we all know who Master Wu and Confucius represent, it’s just that these two are too powerful, out of respect for the Honored, we call the Lord of Justice the Nameless as Master Wu, and the pseudonym for Confucius, you know who it refers to, right."

"I see, I understand, but why do you call them Evil Gods? Is it because they act bizarrely and arrogantly?" Malin took a cigarette from the pack, put it in his mouth, and listened intently.

"For some, that’s indeed the case, for others it’s not, and some True Lords even help us." Having said that, Mr. Meng flicked the ash of his cigarette into the sea: "We mention the name of the True Lord because they are all deceased people, reborn due to their obsessions, they have transcended the current cycle of reincarnation, existing in this world in a strange form... they can no longer be called human, yet most of them retain memories of their past lives, becoming monstrous because of unfinished business from their past."

"Unfinished business?" Malin was somewhat surprised, after all, since coming to this world, the Evil Gods he had seen were mostly poor souls twisted in mind, how to explain this unfinished business, and what explanation Mr. Meng would give him.

"Most of them involve things that ordinary people can’t understand, like The Hangman, this True Lord was first discovered at the end of the Fourth Era. During that time, we Thanan were still struggling against the Chaos Army from the North. The city he was in is long lost to history. When we found him, there was a straight avenue amidst the ruins of a city resembling the Great Destruction Era. It was lined with various street lamps, with different kinds of people hanging from them, some even from different eras, many even before the Great Destruction."

Hearing this, Malin’s mind was already visualizing a bizarre scenario of no less than four thousand words, but just hanging people like swings, Malin still couldn’t determine this entity’s alignment: "Why did he hang so many people?"

"Allegedly, those who mistakenly wander onto the avenue are controlled to walk to its middle, where the True Lord reveals himself in an ever-changing form. This entity demands those who have strayed off course to show him their hearts." Noticing the astonishment on Malin’s face, Mr. Meng continued: "Mr. Malin, do you perhaps think this is the nature of an Evil God? Actually, it’s not. The Hangman True Lord only kills those with wicked hearts. The so-called revealing of hearts is merely to show this entity a person’s conscience. If he finds someone guilty, they are hung on the streetlamp, if not, they can pass through the city unharmed that day. The Hangman has unified all the anomalies within the ruins, so sometimes, those certain of their innocence will enter the city to take advantage of this trait to search for pre-Great Destruction technology."

"...Lawful Neutral alignment." Malin nodded—this guy called The Hangman is quite interesting, isn’t he.

He is said to be Lawful because the guy holds a judicial-like duty; every mortal who appears before him is judged by him. If the mortal is guilty, he kills them and places their body within his domain.

If the mortal is innocent, this strange True Lord lets them go and ensures their safety for the day.

Truly a very interesting guy.

Thinking of this, Malin looked again at Mr. Meng: "He said mortals have sinned, what kind of sin is that?"

"...Unscrupulous merchants, anyone he deems as such will be judged by him." Saying this, Mr. Meng sized up Malin, as if considering a poor soul destined for the lamp.

Malin rolled his eyes—alright, as expected of the strange, even such weird unfinished business.

"Mr. Malin, you don’t seem surprised?" Mr. Meng pressed on, probing.

"No, for me, nothing is really surprising or strange." Malin shook his head.

In fact, he understood this strange entity’s thinking very well. If the ones on the streetlamps are all unscrupulous merchants, then this anomaly poses no problem for Malin—in this dangerous world, everyone faces death directly, it is only natural that unscrupulous merchants should confront death too, it can’t be that they shouldn’t die, right?

What logic is that.

"...True, Mr. Malin, the things you’ve done are fundamentally different from unscrupulous merchants in my view." Mr. Meng pondered, his expression changing, and smiled apologetically.

With Mr. Meng’s apology, Malin felt a bit awkward too—after all, over the years, Malin had never been shy in taking advantage of the Nobles, like a couple of years ago, that gold-plated M1911, with several spell formations, capable of recoil elimination and silencing, sold at a very handsome price in Sydney.