134: Chapter 134 Blood Letter as Witness

That bloated head rolled onto the thick carpet.

The expression on the face was frozen in the final, ultimate terror before death.

Warm blood gushed from the severed neck, staining the magnificent Persian carpet into a filthy, bottomless dark red.

The smell of blood, mixed with the scent of alcohol and cigars, fermented into a nauseating stench within the sealed room.

Chen Xi stood where he was.

He looked at the twitching, headless corpse, his heart a void.

(Is it over?)

The anticipated ecstasy and liberation did not come.

There was only a massive, cold nihilism, as if it wanted to devour his very soul.

(A blood debt of three hundred thousand people.)

(Is paying it back with just his one life enough?)

He looked at the corpse on the floor as if looking at a pile of inorganic trash.

It wasn't enough.

Far from enough.

His death was merely an insignificant beginning.

It had to have meaning.

Everyone had to know that the judgment had already begun.

I want to make fear spread like a plague, growing wildly in the hearts of every invader in this city.

Chen Xi's gaze moved away from the corpse and fell upon the snow-white wall splashed with blood.

He walked over slowly.

He crouched down.

He reached out a finger and lightly dipped it into the viscous pool of blood on the floor.

Warm.

Sticky.

He stood up and walked to the wall.

He raised his hand.

Using that finger stained with sinful blood, he began to write on the wall, stroke by stroke.

His movements were very slow.

Very steady.

It was as if he wasn't writing, but performing a sacred, cold engraving.

"Judg..."

The first stroke, a dot.

The second stroke, a horizontal line.

...

He wrote very earnestly; every stroke was filled with power.

"...ment."

...

When the final stroke fell.

Two massive and hideous blood-red characters appeared on the wall.

Judgment.

That bright red color seemed to burn under the dim light, emitting an aura that made one shudder.

Having finished all this, Chen Xi tossed away the Officer's Sword in his hand.

He didn't spare another glance at the tragic scene in the room.

He turned around.

Just as he had come, he silently merged into the endless darkness outside the window.

...

Dawn.

The sky was faintly light.

A young guard responsible for the shift change yawned as he walked to the door of Tani Hisao's bedroom.

His name was Watanabe.

He felt it was a bit strange.

Usually at this time, the Division Commander should have already risen and be practicing kendo in the courtyard.

Today, it was too quiet.

He hesitated for a moment, then raised his hand and lightly knocked on the door.

"Division Commander?"

There was no answer.

He increased his force.

"Excellency? Are you awake?"

The room remained deathly silent.

An ominous premonition rose in Watanabe's heart.

He tried to turn the doorknob.

The door was unlocked.

"Click."

With a soft sound, the door was pushed open a crack.

An extremely heavy smell of blood, mixed with the stench of waste, rushed toward him.

Watanabe's face changed instantly.

He slammed the door open.

The sight before him made the blood in his entire body freeze in an instant.

The room was a mess.

And his Division Commander, the Imperial Army Lieutenant General, Excellency Tani Hisao, lay in a pool of blood in the center of the carpet, his head separated from his body.

That bloated head had rolled to his feet, eyes wide open, refusing to rest in peace.

Watanabe's mind went blank.

He wanted to scream, but found his throat seemingly squeezed tight by an invisible hand, unable to make any sound.

His gaze subconsciously began to drift around the room.

Then, he saw that wall.

And on the wall, those two massive and distorted Chinese characters written in blood.

Judgment.

Those two characters were like two blood-colored eyes, staring at him coldly and mockingly.

An unspeakable fear from the depths of his soul submerged him instantly like a tsunami.

"Aaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!"

A heart-wrenching, distorted scream pierced the silence before dawn in Nanjing.

Ten minutes later.

The entire Division Headquarters was in total chaos.

Countless officers and Soldiers rushed out of their respective barracks.

When several high-ranking officers rushed into Tani Hisao's bedroom and saw the tragedy inside, everyone stood frozen on the spot.

Their faces were a mix of shock, fury, and a trace of deep, unmaskable fear.

The Division Commander had been beheaded in his own home, the most heavily guarded place.

He had even left behind such a humiliating "manifesto" on the wall.

This was no longer a simple assassination.

This was a declaration.

A public declaration of judgment from the darkness against the entire Sixth Division, and even the entire Empire.

"Seal off the entire city!"

A Colonel was the first to react; his face was ashen as he roared the order.

"Search house by house! Even if you have to dig up Nanjing three feet deep, find that damned ghost for me!"

The piercing sound of alarms echoed throughout the entire city.

Countless trucks started up, and countless Soldiers rushed onto the streets.

The nine gates of Nanjing were instantly closed.

An unprecedented, frantic manhunt began.

And the legend of the "Judge" began to ripple quietly among the Japanese Army and those surviving Chinese civilians hiding in the dark corners, like a stone cast into dead water.