Chapter 164: Exit

“No, you can’t arrest Officer Chen!”

“Officer Chen is a good person. By what right are you judging him?!”

“Where’s Chief Han Meng?! If Chief Han Meng were here, he’d never let you take Officer Chen! Officer Chen is one of us from District Three!”

“Exactly! You can’t take him!”

Hearing that these people intended to arrest Chen Ling, the residents of District Three immediately grew enraged. They actively shielded the train, and the short-tempered ones, like Zhao Yi, even directly charged at the enforcers with their fists.

The Aurora City enforcers’ expressions changed. They immediately aimed their guns at the survivors, but the next moment, curses erupted from beside them!

“Are you crazy?! Killing them now will cause a huge incident! Put your guns away! Drag these refugees out of here!” The officer, after all, could see the situation clearly. There was no order to kill these people, and rash action would only backfire.

The surrounding enforcers immediately rushed forward, grabbing the agitated residents of District Three and slowly dragging them away. The two sides tore at each other, and the scene instantly became chaotic!

The clamor and roars mingled together. Some accused Chen Ling, others supported him, and a dispute without clear right or wrong unfolded fiercely.

Just as the argument between the two sides was about to reach a fever pitch, a calm voice spoke.

“This farce, it’s time for it to end.”

The moment that voice sounded, everyone stopped their clamoring and fighting. They looked up at the train, where the figure in bloodied clothes still appeared serene.

“Chen Ling, are you going to surrender?” the five-sigil officer asked coldly when he saw this.

“Surrender?” Chen Ling scoffed. “By yourselves?”

“You…!”

The disdain in Chen Ling’s words thoroughly infuriated the officer. He glared at Chen Ling, his gaze seemingly capable of murder.

“You’re nothing but a heretic who snuck into Aurora City using hostages! Without Aurora City, you would have died long ago in the intersections of the Grey Realm!” The officer’s voice was chilling. “You want to live by relying on Aurora City, yet you act so recklessly?”

“Who said my purpose in entering Aurora City was to live?”

“Then why did you come into the city?!”

“I had two purposes for entering the city…” Chen Ling raised a finger and pointed down at the disheveled people from District Three, answering unhurriedly,

“First, I couldn’t stand Aurora City’s hypocritical justice. Whether abandoning the seven districts was correct, I won’t comment, but your management of the lower-ranking enforcers and officers disgusted me to no end…”

“Since the enforcers you label as ‘just’ are slaughtering civilians, I insisted on bringing these survivors into Aurora City… I wanted Aurora City to hear what kind of monsters are truly running rampant beneath the facade of justice.”

As soon as this statement was made, the survivors from District Three seemed to recall something, and flames of anger began to flicker in their eyes. While some Aurora City residents’ expressions also changed slightly, not everyone could resonate with his words.

The five-sigil officer’s face was grim. In his view, Chen Ling was undoubtedly like those heretics secretly instigating protests, merely trying to confuse the minds of the civilians with nonsense…

He couldn’t let him continue speaking.

At this point, the enforcers below the train had gradually moved away the surrounding residents of District Three, and the entire area was mostly cleared. The two five-sigil officers exchanged a glance. After a brief silent communication, one of them quietly disappeared, approaching Chen Ling on the train.

“Nonsense,” the five-sigil officer narrowed his eyes, attempting to distract Chen Ling. “Since when did a heretic get to judge the merits of the enforcement system?”

Chen Ling completely ignored him. A faint glow from his mystical eyes flickered across his pupils, and he cast a casual glance to his side.

Then, as if completely unaware, he calmly continued speaking:

“Second… I came to deliver a ‘warning’.”

“A warning?”

Chen Ling paused for a moment, his voice echoing clearly in everyone’s ears. “The cold winds of the Frozen Sea have already reached Aurora City. The destruction of the seven districts is not the end of the story… perhaps, it’s just the beginning.”

Everyone was stunned, seemingly not understanding Chen Ling’s meaning, but the expressions of several officers drastically changed. Their eyes were filled with fear and anger!

“You seek death!!” the five-sigil officer roared. “Aurora City is impregnable! How dare an outsider like you desecrate it? What are you waiting for? Quickly apprehend this heretic!!”

Before his words even finished, all the enforcers below once again raised their guns at Chen Ling. At the same time, from the void beside the train, a figure, carrying a terrifying pressure, suddenly struck!

This five-sigil officer had already reached Chen Ling’s side. At this distance, he was confident he could apprehend Chen Ling with one blow, leaving him no escape!

However, just as his palm was about to touch Chen Ling, a slight curve appeared at the corner of the latter’s mouth. The glance he cast at the officer held a faint amusement and mockery.

Chen Ling forcefully crushed several rune eels hidden in his sleeve!

Boom—!!

As the rune eels were pulverized, raging flames instantly burst forth from Chen Ling’s palm. From a distance, it looked as if a scorching sun had erupted atop the train!

The extreme heat warped and distorted the surrounding light, and the five-sigil officer’s hand was directly scorched black!

He was greatly alarmed, recoiling sharply, his gaze at Chen Ling filled with shock!

No one could see where the flames came from. It seemed as though Chen Ling had simply raised his hand, and a blazing sun with a radius of several meters spontaneously ignited out of thin air before everyone’s eyes. The figure in bloodied clothes stood calmly amidst the inferno, like a brilliant deity at the center of light and heat.

“He… he??” Everyone present was stunned. The five-sigil officer never imagined that Chen Ling would actually set himself on fire!

“Is he crazy?!”

“He finally made it into Aurora City, only to self-immolate in the end?!”

“Heretic Chen Ling… Heretic Chen Ling? A heretic went to such lengths to bring survivors from the seven districts into the city, and then he just self-immolates? What was his purpose?”

“That doesn’t make sense then. This doesn’t benefit him at all… Or did he really just want to save people?”

“He sacrificed his life to save that group of survivors from District Three… How could someone like that be a heretic?”

“I believe those survivors now. This Chen Ling is absolutely not a heretic! If someone like him can be called a heretic, then what does that make the officers who abandoned the seven districts?”

“He shouldn’t have died! Aurora City forced him to die!! He’s just a hero who saved the abandoned!”

Everyone stared blankly at the figure standing in the raging flames, their minds reeling. Amidst the continuous shouts, the accusations against Chen Ling made by the officers earlier completely fell apart after Chen Ling set himself on fire…

The heretic in the officers’ eyes, the criminal who disguised himself and infiltrated the enforcement system, the contemptible wretch who used hostages to coerce his way into Aurora City for survival—under those raging flames, all the labels and doubts placed upon Chen Ling were burned away!

Sometimes, actual actions are more convincing than mere words. This fire overturned the officers’ narrative, pushing the outcome of the farce to a conclusion absolutely favorable to Chen Ling.

At this moment, only one label remained for Chen Ling…

That of a savior, willing to sacrifice himself to challenge Aurora City and rescue the abandoned refugees!

In the burning flames, Chen Ling’s body gradually turned to ash. He smiled as he looked at the audience below the stage, one hand gently placed on his chest, bowing elegantly, like an actor taking his final bow.

The ashes soared and roared into the sky, transforming into countless poker cards before everyone’s eyes, fluttering down like snowflakes… In the crowded masses, on distant streets, within the burning flames—

They were thousands upon thousands of Sixes of Hearts.

Just as everyone was shaken by this scene, a calm and slow voice resonated from the embers of the flames,

“Human civilization will never extinguish.”