Chapter 54 – Interactive Segment

The prisoners soon stopped their cursing – because they realized that whenever they swore, the executioners behind them would swiftly swell and grow larger.

After all, only dim-witted people end up as death row convicts. They had forgotten that hundreds of thousands of Caimon City residents were watching them curse!

The audience thought: Good! Curse more! The fouler and more vulgar the better! We’ll reward you with a ticket and help you die and reincarnate sooner!

Once the scene quieted down, Nago said leisurely: “You feel pain not because we arranged it, but because of your own problems. As I said, as long as you are truly repentant, you will not be affected by the Purgatorial Flame. The Purgatorial Flame burns sin and scorches evil.”

“Also, not everyone will feel pain. Look at Mr. Ashe Heath and Mr. Valcas Uhl – they are unaffected by the Purgatorial Flame. Please learn from them.”

The agonized crowd only just realized that Ashe and Valcas were almost glued to the executioners, yet the churning Purgatorial Flame passed through their bodies and they still stood ramrod straight.

“If you feel pain, you should take this opportunity to accept the Purgatorial Flame’s cleansing and repent your sins, making a new start.” Nago didn’t seem to be mocking them – it was as if he was genuinely advising them to repent: “The Blood Moon Sovereign and Caimon City residents will see your sincerity.”

“I admit my wrongs, I admit…” Harvey wailed in pain, tears and snot running down his gaunt face twisted like woodgrain. More than half his body hung outside the platform, his hands clutching the steel wire cut down to the bone.

But even such danger, such torment, couldn’t compare to a single lick of the Purgatorial Flame’s flames!

“You must thoroughly recognize how unforgivable your past mistakes were, completely sever ties with your former sinful self, in order to obtain the Blood Moon’s forgiveness.”

Nago’s mouth curled up: “Of course, there is also an easy way: just continuously endure the Purgatorial Flame’s burning. Your sinful soul will burn to ashes, naturally leaving behind a virtuous soul.”

Although it sounded far-fetched, Ashe didn’t feel Nago would lie, at least not during this live show watched by the entire nation.

This meant the Purgatorial Flame could split personalities, using tremendous continuous pain to divide the death row convicts into a virtuous persona, then ruthlessly torment the original persona to death!

Upon hearing this, almost all the death row convicts wished they could hang from the steel wire.

Compared to death, they were even more unable to accept their souls being completely destroyed!

“I understand…I understand…”

Ashe looked towards Harvey mumbling to himself beside him. Harvey sobbed and his mouth twitched. “We’re all done for this time…”

Ashe curiously asked: “What are you afraid of? Didn’t you say only one person dies each Blood Moon Tribunal? Just endure for now and it’ll pass.”

“Not every Blood Moon Tribunal has the same outcome. This time we met with an occasional exception.” Harvey cried as if laughing. “I just remembered, old man Ryan said the Andreim faction would have an important death recently, and many ministers and officials would be purged…”

“What does political turmoil have to do with the Blood Moon Tribunal?”

“Do you think a serial killer, or a minister exposed for corruption and graft, would be more entertaining at the Blood Moon Tribunal?”

Ashe understood.

In terms of entertainment from watching deaths, it was directly proportional to the convict’s prior social status.

“Political strife in the Blood Moon Empire is most cruel. Which minister or official that could move up wasn’t bloody? The winner takes all, the loser faces trial, draining their last ounce of social value. It’s both an explanation to the public, and a warning to other officials – warning them to be even more covert and leave no evidence…”

“You’re quite knowledgeable.”

“Who do you think the corpses I handled before belonged to?”

“But what does that have to do with the Blood Moon Tribunal suddenly killing more evenly?”

Harvey looked extremely aggrieved. “The dorms are full.”

Ashe was taken aback, mentally sprouting countless herbs.

That made perfect sense!

Since the dorms were full, they had to kill some people to make room for the fallen ministers to move in. It was such a realistic yet darkly comedic ruthless logic.

Because the prison was overcrowded, they had to die.

How absurd, how cruel, how bluntly logical.

“Urgh!”

Just then, Harvey gritted his teeth and hung fully from the steel wire, swaying forward towards the main platform.

Each swing scraped his palms on the wire, quickly skinning them to the bloody meat and exposing teeth-clenchingly terrifying hand bones. But Ashe clearly saw that his bones weren’t the common pale white, but gave off a silvery sheen!

After scraping his palms bare, Harvey’s climbing speed visibly increased. Even as the wire grated his hand bones with a nails-on-chalkboard screech, he seemed unfazed by any pain, his expression very relaxed!

It was a spirit!

A spirit used to enhance bone defense?

The other death row convicts also scrambled to grab the wire and flee. Some had strong skin defense, the wire only leaving a red mark on their skin.

Some excelled in agility, running directly along the wire.

Most bizarre was the cannibal – as a temperature-type sorcerer, he rapidly lowered the temperature to coat the wire in a thick layer of ice, then swung his body and slid across!

The prison really was full of talented people, eloquent speakers, and performers of all sorts of tricks.

Compared to these hastily escaping death row convicts, Ashe who was unaffected by the Purgatorial Flame naturally had more time to think.

He turned and looked towards Nago standing on the viewing platform at the back.

Noticing his gaze, Nago clasped his hands behind his back and smiled slightly. “A great idea – instead of struggling with the wires under the Blood Moon rules, why not break the rules and jump backwards into the prison?”

“Oh!”

The Red Mist Tavern patrons simultaneously realized: “Jump backwards into the prison to dodge all this and escape the Blood Moon Tribunal!”

“Aren’t there any other traps?”

“Letting the death row convicts escape torture so easily? How did Shattered Lake Prison mess up this fun tribunal mode so badly?”

“F*cking b*stards, refund our money!”

Lawrence keenly noticed that at this moment, Ashe Heath’s odds suddenly dropped from 1.65 to 1.45. This meant the snake boss felt Ashe’s chances of ‘winning’ had greatly increased, so he adjusted the odds in time to avoid losing money.

After a little thought, the fishman understood why the prison had set things up this way.

Besides its extremely entertaining nature, the ‘Blood Moon Tribunal’ event had enthralled the entire nation for decades because of its high interactivity.

Obvious loopholes like this were left intentionally by the prison, to provide the audience cathartic interactive moments – giving them the hope of personally strangling the convicts!

What entertainment was more thrilling than bestowing despair?