Chapter 53 – Purgatorial Flame

Red Mist Tavern.

“Eh? Boss Snake, why is his payout rate so high, and there’s no cap limit? Aren’t you afraid of losing badly?”

The customers looked at the betting for the ‘death penalty’ in the local channel and found that the payout rate for the ‘favorites’ was surprisingly 1.65 – based on past experience, the payout for favorites was at most 1.0001 or even lower, and there was a cap limit per person.

Since everyone could basically judge who would die each Tribunal after looking through the death row inmates’ information, Boss Snake certainly wouldn’t give away money for free.

For popular bets in gambling, it was often things like ‘difference between highest and lowest votes’, ‘can highest votes exceed 150,000 in 15 minutes’, ‘will there be inmate brawls in 5 minutes’ – categories with very high unpredictability.

Boss Snake next to the bar counter stuck out his tongue and hissed, “Yesss, I’m losing badly, what if you all bet on him, I’d be in trouble ss~”

A customer laughed, “Ah, I won’t take Boss Snake’s money, I just want to lose for fun, eh~ I just want to bet on the one with the lowest payout and limited amount.”

Lawrence looked at the betting in the light screen, wondering if he should play a few hands – he hadn’t touched gambling for a whole year plus in Shattered Lake Prison.

Almost anyone could open these local bets, there were no restrictions, but there was one prerequisite: the bookie had to first deposit a large sum in the Caimon Commercial Bank, otherwise the bank would not provide the betting service for the gambling, which also effectively prevented malicious incidents of bookies suffering huge losses and welching.

After browsing through the ‘highest votes’ payout rates of the eight death row inmates, Lawrence already knew who would most likely be the redeemer of this Blood Moon Tribunal.

The lower the payout rate, the more certain everyone thought he would definitely die.

Generally speaking, the one with the lowest payout was often the ‘favorites’ that could be judged just from the information. But this time…

“Interesting…”

Lawrence smiled and went all in on the bet for the person with the lowest payout rate.

…

…

Ashe finally understood.

Why Harvey could be certain that tonight’s “random” draw would have a high chance of landing on him – so the so-called random draw was an audience vote!

The death row inmate with the most votes could win the grand prize of a trip to heaven!

The executioner would send you straight to heaven!

So why was Ashe certain to die as long as it was an audience vote?

Because Ashe was the hot news topic these past few days!

He was the ‘monthly hot pick’, the ‘cover character’!

The news recently had all been focused on Ashe Heath’s rise of the heretical Waterism, explained in depth in vivid detail, even Ashe himself read it with great interest, one could imagine most of the audience was not unfamiliar with Ashe now.

What was audience appeal?

This was audience appeal!

Since you’re so familiar, then we’ll pick you!

Seeing his own vote count rapidly increasing, while the crimson ‘executioner’ in front also grew increasingly huge and sinister, almost occupying most of the platform space, squeezing Ashe to the edge with both heels over the side.

Every cell in his body was screaming at him to run!

Just as Ashe was about to lose his grip, a sudden shriek came from beside him!

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

The cannibal inmate next to him screamed as if scalded by an iron, a shriek as shrill as a little girl’s!

It seemed this cannibal was singed by the executioner’s dim blue flames, and he shrank back to the edge, hands clutching the steel wires, looking pitiful, weak and helpless!

At this time the other inmates also cried out, each seemingly in excruciating pain.

Though there were no visible wounds, they looked as if nails were hammered into their flesh.

One goblin even walked on the wires despite his light body,

They would rather risk falling into the sea than stand with the executioner!

Was it that painful?

Although he had always known they were on death row, because of the chips restricting the inmates’ actions, Ashe did not have a clear understanding of this till now.

Only at this moment did he feel a sense of superiority welling up.

Oh my, how shrill your screams are, how terrifying death row inmates, not like me, I don’t feel any pain at all~

“Illegal…illegal!”

One death row inmate burned by the Purgatorial Flame bit through his lips and yelled loudly, “This is a violation of human rights, the Blood Moon Tribunal cannot harm us during the voting!”

“You’re torturing us, trampling our dignity, using our torment as a means!”

“Human rights organizations, council members watching the Tribunal, quickly lodge complaints, stop them!”

“That’s right, aren’t we supposed to be safe during the voting phase!? Shattered Lake Prison violated the Tribunal’s rules!”

“Stop this Tribunal now! Hurry!”

Ashe also found it strange, because from various sources, the Tribunals mostly only killed one person, the other seven could return to prison unharmed.

In fact, the vast majority of prisoners Ashe had met were survivors of the Tribunal, some were even frequent veterans who had dared the dangerous edges many times.

Moreover, the Blood Moon Nation was very concerned with race rights and human rights (seemingly), and would never allow any punitive torture using humans as means.

Even interrogational torture had been unified into ‘memory retrieval’.

Criminals would not suffer any torture from capture to imprisonment.

You could choose to say or not say, we would not infringe on your human rights one bit.

Of course, whether ‘memory retrieval’ counted as human rights infringement was another matter.

So the death row inmates’ doubts about Shattered Lake Prison were somewhat legally grounded – their current circumstances were undoubtedly purely torture, not aligned with the Tribunal’s redemptive spirit, it was blasphemy against the Blood Moon Sovereign, a regression from equal rights!

“No.”

Nago shook his head, “The rules for this Tribunal have been approved by the council, human rights organizations, various racial rights groups, there are no inhumane arrangements. Although your current circumstances seem dangerous, as long as you stay put and do nothing, you will not suffer any harm.”

“Ah!” Just then, the beastman death row inmate’s executioner suddenly grew a bit, singeing the beastman’s skin with the Purgatorial Flame, making this big and burly beastman who looked as hardy as iron scream like a little girl.

“You call this no harm!?” The death row inmates trembled with rage, “You…you damned natural born hybrid of cannibals and goblins, only able to spew shit like those green-skinned garbage with boar tusks!?”

“Despicable scum raised on shit in the downtown orphanage!”

“Defiled virgin by a goblin gigolo!”

Only now did the death row inmates remember they had unlocked all their shackles, no longer bound by rules of racial equality, proper speech, and immediately exploded with exuberant fighting spirit, seeming to spew out in one breath all the foul language they had swallowed these days, managing to cram regional discrimination, racial discrimination, gender discrimination in one sentence, even Ashe couldn’t help but lend an ear.

Until he heard Harvey yell out beside him:

“Dimwit believer of the Four Pillars!”

Ashe looked at Harvey, although he wasn’t, but he still felt it was directed at him, so he also shouted:

“Disgusting necromancer who sleeps hugging corpses!”

Harvey glared back, Ashe glared back unyielding, then heard the other ask in a lowered voice:

“How did you know?”

“Huh?”

He wasn’t pushed into the sea by the executioner, instead this line frightened Ashe so much he nearly stumbled back three steps into the sea.