"Holy Water... That’s right, Holy Water! Lord, grant me the Holy Water to wash away my sins! Protect me!"

Warren looked around desperately amidst a terrifying vision. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he lunged for the mahogany altar beside him.

But in Li Wei’s eyes, it was just a decorative oil lamp.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Warren snatched the lamp, ripped off its glass shade, and poured the burning oil inside all over his head.

WHOOSH!

The fire instantly followed the oil, licking its way up Warren’s robe. A violent blaze erupted, engulfing him completely.

"AAAAAAAHHH—!"

An unimaginable scream tore from Warren’s throat, but his agonized cries were trapped within the room, heard only by the distant mountains.

The datura poisoning had sent his central nervous system into disarray, triggering extreme hyperalgesia. His nervous system amplified the heat of the flames tenfold, a hundredfold. He became a living torch, thrashing wildly, rolling on the ground in agony and clawing at his own skin.

"Is this the Karmic Fire you were talking about, the fire of judgment?" Li Wei stood aside, with no intention of helping. "Now it’s your turn to be judged by the Karmic Fire."

The front desk supervisor’s own trip was just beginning. He was giggling foolishly at the chandelier on the ceiling, not yet comprehending the situation, when Warren, still rolling on the ground, seized his leg in a death grip.

"Fire! Fire! Get off me! You crazy old man!"

The sudden, searing pain ripped the supervisor halfway out of his own hallucination.

He tried to kick Warren away in terror, but Warren, fueled by agony, possessed astonishing strength and refused to let go.

The two men grappled and rolled on the floor in a gruesome struggle, setting the wooden furniture alight as they thrashed. In the sealed room, the fire raged, growing more intense by the second.

Li Wei stood silently by the door, watching impassively through his cracked mask as they burned in an unending Hell of their own making.

You have completed the mission: Purge the Heretic! Put him on the pyre!!

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The zealot who deluded the masses with potions and lies shall perish by the fire of potions and lies.

Acquired: Royal Knight Academy Ticket x1

Strength, Constitution, Agility, and Spirit have met the standard. Promotion requirements satisfied.

Confirm promotion?

[Yes/No]

Li Wei didn’t press the button. After all, he wasn’t finished here yet.

The two security guards Li Wei had knocked out must have woken up, as the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from outside the door.

Li Wei shot one last glance at the motionless bodies of the supervisor and the Prophet Warren, then vaulted out the window.

He took the long way around before returning to his room.

Anya was still fast asleep.

A short while later, the building’s alarm began to blare.

...

By the time Li Wei had changed into his pajamas and joined Anya, feigning the confused look of someone just woken by the alarm, the two of them followed the panicked crowd downstairs. The commotion in the adjacent building had already reached a fever pitch.

The resort’s security, along with Warren’s brothers, sons, and followers, finally hacked through the heavy, solid-wood double doors with fire axes.

The moment the doors burst open, a thick, nauseating stench—the smell of burnt protein mixed with dense smoke from the burning wood—assaulted them, forcing those at the front to stumble back, choking.

The fire inside had already begun to die down from lack of oxygen in the sealed room. A frantic blast from the security guards’ dry-chemical extinguishers put out the last of the flames. The once-luxurious lounge was now nothing but a blackened ruin.

And there, in the center of the ruins, lay two charred bodies, twisted, deformed, and burned almost to carbon.

A crowd of staff members and Warren’s wives also came stumbling to the scene.

They stared at the remains on the floor, all of them frozen on the spot, utterly at a loss.

Though the body was burned beyond recognition, the blackened gold Rolex on one of the corpse’s wrists revealed the deceased’s identity: their supreme Prophet, husband, brother, and father—Warren.

A dead silence fell over the hallway, broken only by the HISS of a leaking fire extinguisher.

"He isn’t dead," one of the older wives declared. "This is just a test. A trial the Prophet has set for us."

Anya recognized her. It was their yoga instructor.

She turned to the trembling young girls behind her and shouted, "Have you all forgotten? The Prophet gave us a divine message! He said that if he were ever to suffer a calamity, he would be resurrected on the third day! Just like Jesus Christ, he will rise from death and lead us to true eternal life!"

The wife knelt reverently before Warren’s remains. She reached out, intending to cradle the charred body as if it were a holy relic.

The moment her hands slid under Warren’s armpits and she tried to lift him—

There was a dry, crackling sound.

Warren’s remains fell apart, shattering into blackened pieces on the floor. His torso disintegrated like a sandcastle, scattering into dust and cinders. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"If he can come back from this," Li Wei murmured to Anya from within the crowd, "I might actually become a believer."

Anya thumped him.

The wife stared blankly at the handful of ash and cinders left in her grasp, the fanatical zeal on her face freezing into a mask of disbelief.

The man they saw as an omnipotent Prophet, a god, had suddenly crumbled into a pile of slag and ash—nothing more than refuse, devoid of any miracle of life.

"AAAAAHHHH!!!!"

Someone let out a bloodcurdling scream, and then all hell broke loose in the hallway.

The terror of waking from a long delusion and the despair of their shattered faith washed over everyone at once.

The girls in white dresses began to sob and wail, their cries heart-wrenching. Some tore at their hair in a frenzy, while others collapsed to the floor, vomiting uncontrollably.

His brothers and sons, the men who had just been wielding fire axes, their faith in Warren unshakable, now dropped their tools. They sank to their knees, covering their faces as they broke down completely.

...

「Two days later.」

After the cult that had taken root in southern Utah was exposed, all its members arrested, and the innocent guests rescued, Li Wei and Anya said their goodbyes to Mark and Sarah.

Li Wei and Anya would continue their journey, while Mark and Sarah were heading back home to New York.

"Please, give me a chance to repay you," Mark said. The Vacheron Constantin was back on his wrist. "When you get back to New York, you have to let me thank you properly."

"Of course," Li Wei said with a smile, shaking his hand. "Did you get your watch back from the police?"

"Yeah," Mark said, glancing at the watch with a sigh. "I used to think that taking off my watch meant letting go of my anxiety, finding freedom... Looking back, I was just lying to myself."

"Providing a stable life for Sarah and making sure our child grows up healthy—that’s what I should be focusing on now," he said. He was far less anxious than when Li Wei had first met him. "I’m ready to get back to work."

"We’re going to continue south for a few more days before heading back to New York," Li Wei said. "So, I’ll see you in New York."

「A few nights later.」

Li Wei watched Anya sleep, then gently pulled the blanket over her.

He crept out of the tent and made his way deep into the vast, moonlit national forest.

Confirm promotion?

[Yes/No]

Li Wei glanced at the interface. With a thought, he clicked on it.

’Confirm!’