Chapter 73: Upheaval
Before removing the bandage, Xu Zhi had considered what kind of wounded eyes she might see. But what she hadn’t expected—was to see no eyes at all.
On the girl’s thin, pale face were two pitch-black, hollow eye sockets, oozing blood. Her expression was numb, lifeless. In Xu Zhi’s gaze, the empty sockets emitted a faint red glow—clear signs that they’d been gouged out by someone using a [Cup] attribute supernatural ability.
“I have to ask… this wasn’t your doing, was it?” Xu Zhi raised an eyebrow and turned to face the boy behind her.
His pupils contracted slightly, a look of surprise flashing across his face. “H–how could it be?!”
His tone didn’t sound fake. The way he looked at Xu Zhi was as if she had just uttered complete nonsense.
Who else could it be?
Would cultists even fight amongst themselves?
Thinking this, Xu Zhi asked directly, “If it wasn’t you, then is there another cultist here who could’ve taken her eyes?”
The exaggerated shock on the boy’s face immediately froze. His pupils trembled violently, as if Xu Zhi’s words had struck him with a profound and terrifying realization. She could see the muscles in his face twitching involuntarily.
“You… how do you kn—”
Before he could finish, his right arm suddenly swelled up, grotesquely deformed and inhuman. A moment later, he lunged straight at Xu Zhi.
He moved with astonishing speed, slicing through the air with a sharp gust. But Xu Zhi remained motionless, standing there with a frown, eyes full of disappointment—disappointed that he had lost his composure so quickly.
The boy had no idea what she was thinking. He only wanted to incapacitate her first, then interrogate her on how she knew so much.
But before he could touch her, a shadow flashed by. In the next second, he was struck by an overwhelming force—launched sideways like a ragdoll, his back slamming into the wall before bouncing to the ground. Blood surged in his throat, and he coughed up a mouthful laced with fragments of organs.
Since his awakening, it was the first time he felt like a mere insect—something that could be squashed at any moment.
He tried to speak, but all he could do was weakly lift his gaze. The girl he thought was naïve was now looking down at him coldly, expression distant. As soon as he opened his mouth, another spurt of blood forced its way out.
“…Pathetic.” Her disappointed voice drifted down.
Then a red, basic core dropped to the ground with a ding, and she spoke with a dismissive tone, “Eat it. You’re no use to me like this—I can’t interrogate you in this state.”
Of course he recognized what it was.
A [Cup] attribute core, taken from someone like him—a fellow cultist.
He gave a bitter smile. Looked like he had kicked a steel wall this time. He obediently reached out with a trembling hand, picked up the core, and placed it into his mouth.
As he ate, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of humiliation. He thought, maybe if his awakening level were lower, he wouldn’t even feel this way. He’d probably just be red-eyed with rage and throw himself at her, without the capacity for thought or self-preservation.
To the cultists, the best medicine for healing injuries was a [Cup] core—and blood.
After swallowing the basic core, his internal injuries eased slightly. Not healed, but enough for him to speak.
The boy struggled to sit up, dragging a red smear of blood on the floor as he leaned back against the wall. After a few breaths, he looked up at Xu Zhi and asked, “What do you want?”
He even used the respectful tone.
“If only you’d shown some manners before,” Xu Zhi said, pouting with clear dissatisfaction. “I didn’t want this to get ugly.”
That was the truth. Her original plan had been to bring the boy and his injured friend along for observation—studying cultists up close. Who would’ve thought things would escalate so fast, completely derailing her brief whim.
But it didn’t matter. A whim was just that—something easy to discard.
She asked, “Who took her eyes?”
“I wasn’t lying—it really wasn’t me,” he said, seeing Xu Zhi motion for him to continue.
“…We escaped.”
The moment he said those words, Xu Zhi’s eyes lit up with interest.
Escaped?
“From where? And why?” she asked.
The boy hesitated, then said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed… but in this area, even quite far out, there are barely any living people.”
Xu Zhi nodded, and he continued“Ever since the lockdown began, awakened cultists have been gathered together. Since you know we’re cultists, you probably also know there’s a hierarchy among us?”
At this point, he paused, unsure whether Xu Zhi understood that part. Seeing her shake her head, he took a moment to explain.
“From the moment we awaken, a hierarchy is engraved into our minds… into our bodies. You’ve seen the lowest tier of cultists before—those mindless ones. They are the bottom rung of our society. Tools. They have no thoughts, no self. All they do is give everything—body and soul.”
“The benefit of that mindlessness is they’re easy to control. Most of the time, they’re used as blood sacrifices or fodder.”
“Above them are cultists like me—those with rational thought and supernatural abilities. But we’re still just cultists, only a little better in rank and strength.”
“Because above us are even stronger and higher-ranking beings. Ones that are no longer called ‘cultists,’ but something else entirely.”
“What appeared here… was an Acolyte.”
Xu Zhi listened with fascination. She had already guessed that the [Cup] attribute cultists might have their own internal structure—but she didn’t expect it to be this intricate.
It was almost like a built-in instinctual hierarchy after awakening.
Why was [Cup] so unique?
“Acolyte? What’s that?” she asked, puzzled.
The boy thought for a moment and replied, “The assistant of a ritual?”
So… just the literal meaning?
“He noticed that the ritual was incomplete—flawed—and has been trying to repair it. But it’s extremely difficult.”
“The legacy has been cut off. We can hardly commune with… anything. Unless… an Archbishop is born!”
When he reached this part, the boy didn’t utter a sound—but paused.
Not because he didn’t want to say it. He simply couldn’t.
Or maybe… he didn’t even know how to describe it.
Because even for the most loyal believers, it was impossible to truly describe what exactly they worshipped.
