18: Chapter 18 The Tragedy Transporter

Inside the players' tunnel, the lights were bright.

Jiangnans First Shield left, his heart full of doubt and a trace of awe.

In front of Jiang Xun, only Xu Qingran remained, dressed in a white gown.

The heroic spirit she usually carried was gone; her eyes, which were always as bright as the stars, were now filled with complexity and detachment.

"You look less and less like a student."

Her voice was soft, yet like a needle, it precisely punctured the clamor of victory.

"In your eyes, there is no longer the hot blood and impulsiveness of youth—only calculation and... Killing Intent."

Jiang Xun adjusted his glasses, his gaze behind the lenses calm as water.

"In your eyes, what should I be like?"

"I don't know." Xu Qingran shook her head, her beautiful brows furrowed tightly. "I only know that everything you've achieved along the way has been through plundering. You crush your opponents and then claim their civilizations as your own. What is the fundamental difference between you and Li Ang, or those other marauders we despise?"

This had always been her confusion, and it was the point she found most unacceptable deep in her heart.

In the education she had received, plundering was itself an original sin.

Jiang Xun did not argue.

He simply turned around and walked toward the other exit of the tunnel.

"Follow me."

Stepping through that door, the world seemed to be split into two halves.

Behind them were the thunderous cheers and brilliant lights of the stadium.

Before them lay a forgotten corner beneath the city's prosperity—a dark and damp back alley.

This was a temporary post-match settlement area.

A strange smell, a mix of disinfectant, low-quality food, and despair, hung in the air.

Lining both sides of the road, sitting or lying down, were the low-level gods who had been eliminated from this Resource Competition.

Their Divine Kingdoms were shattered, their Divine Fire dimmed, and their eyes were as hollow as those of the walking dead.

A middle-aged man held his head, weeping silently; his Goblin civilization had been crushed in the first round by a noble youth's Knight Order.

A young woman numbly fed nutritional fluid to the child in her arms; her Flower and Grass civilization had been burned to ashes by a fire-wielding god, who had only done it to test a newly acquired Combat Technique.

Xu Qingran's pace slowed down unconsciously.

Born into a prestigious family and raised in a clean, orderly, and rule-bound high society, she had never seen such raw, crushed misery.

Jiang Xun stopped in front of a little girl.

The girl was probably only seven or eight years old, wearing ill-fitting old clothes, and clutching a model of a Divine Kingdom made of mud and stones that had long since been broken to pieces.

It was her everything.

Xu Qingran recognized her; she was one of the contestants eliminated that morning. Her Rabbitman civilization had been torn to shreds as a trophy by a Prodigy's pet demonic wolf.

That Prodigy hadn't even lifted a finger personally.

Jiang Xun squatted down and looked at the girl.

Then, he turned his head and looked calmly at Xu Qingran.

"Now, let me answer your question."

"The difference is that Li Ang and his kind are the creators of tragedy. Their plundering is to satisfy their own selfish desires, to enjoy the pleasure of trampling the weak."

His voice wasn't loud, but it reached Xu Qingran's ears clearly.

"And I, I never take the initiative to create tragedy."

"I am merely a porter."

"I simply take the tragedies that those high-and-mighty perpetrators have personally inflicted on others and carry them back to them, unchanged."

"I let them taste the flavor of having their Divine Kingdoms plundered. I let them experience the feeling of falling from the clouds into the mud."

Xu Qingran's body trembled slightly.

Jiang Xun's gaze was clear and firm—it was the look of someone who had found his own Dao and was willing to give everything for it.

"As for those I've defeated, you've seen it—I only challenge those who provoke me or commit many evils. Have you ever seen me strike an innocent person?"

Xu Qingran opened her mouth, but couldn't say a word.

She thought back, and it was true. Every time Jiang Xun acted, there seemed to be a clear reason.

"Power has no good or evil, only people do. When rules cannot bring fairness, and when kindness only results in bullying, then I can only use my own way to seek a form of consequential justice."

After saying this, Jiang Xun reached out his hand, and a soft green light emerged in his palm.

It was a fragment of the Law of the "Twin Flower Demon" civilization he had just plundered from Sun Jiao. It possessed decent healing abilities but was useless to Jiang Xun's Human Race system.

He gently infused that Law fragment into the shattered Divine Kingdom model in the little girl's arms.

The green light flickered, and the shocking cracks on the model actually began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The little girl stared blankly at the scene, a spark of light appearing in her hollow eyes for the first time.

She looked up and said timidly to Jiang Xun.

"Thank you... big brother."

Xu Qingran's heart felt as if it had been struck hard by something.

She looked at Jiang Xun's profile, at the calmness on his face that was inconsistent with his age, and suddenly thought of her father.

A man who was equally powerful and equally steadfast in the justice within his heart.

"My father..." she spoke subconsciously, her voice a bit dry. "Back then, he defended the border against Evil Gods and was a hero with illustrious military achievements. But in the end, he didn't die at the hands of the Evil Gods; instead, he disappeared due to a betrayal and sell-out by 'his own people'."

"That's why I hate anyone who breaks the rules, and I'm afraid of... those who possess power but exist outside the rules."

Because she couldn't tell if such a person would eventually become a hero like her father or a traitor who sells out heroes.

Jiang Xun stood up.

"I can't promise you anything. I can only walk the path I've chosen."

He didn't look at Xu Qingran again, turning to walk out of the alley.

Xu Qingran stood there, watching Jiang Xun's receding figure, then looked at the little girl who was smiling while holding her repaired Divine Kingdom model.

For the first time, a large gray area appeared in her world outside of black and white.

The belief she had always held firm began to waver.

After a long time, she turned and left silently.

Under the cold moonlight, only a barely audible whisper, filled with confusion, remained.

"Is plundering... really the only answer?"