Chapter 63: The Sword of Lamplight

One by one, the heroic spirits responded to him.

The Branlit lantern in Su Wen’s hand grew increasingly bright in the dead of night.

Ultimately, it became a eulogy depicting the millennia-long evolution of civilization on this archipelago.

At this moment.

Looking at those figures, some graceful, some silent.

Not just him.

Nor just the young girl, Philia, as she wiped away her tears.

Far beyond the distant storm exclusion zone.

Every naval soldier standing on the coastline gazing into the storm lowered the weapons in their hands.

After all.

Those figures dissolving into pale blue micro-light around Su Wen—

The vast majority of them had long since been engraved upon the tombstones of the island's cemetery.

'They' had departed.

'They' had never been forgotten.

Colonel Ulysses spoke with solemnity and gravity:

"Salute!"

Following his lead with the first movement.

With a sharp snap.

Every stationed soldier, filled with reverence, simultaneously completed the salute.

Even Sydney was no exception.

He had witnessed the future mentioned in the detective's words.

At the same time, everyone present would forever engrave this scene in their memories.

However, this vow belonging to the "afterglow of the lamp" seemed hardly worthy of praise in the eyes of the abyss cultists.

Ten meters away from Su Wen.

The vanguard patriarch of the Surging Tide Cult.

Rocking his massive frame, covered in deep blue scales, and wielding a giant axe rusted green by the sea, he roared as he charged forward:

"I don't care what you are doing.

Kevin, go to hell!"

Witnessing this,

Su Wen sighed calmly and said:

"How truly ugly."

He sidestepped.

Yet he did not use a backward step to evade this immensely heavy blow.

Instead,

Su Wen met it head-on, surrounded by the faint shimmer of the lamp's light.

Two fingers pinched the already rusted giant axe.

Then,

The radiance of the lamp's afterglow suddenly burst forth,

instantly disintegrating the transcendent-grade ritual axe of the Surging Tide Cult into fine powder.

Looking into Su Wen's calm and profound eyes, mere inches away,

that patriarch finally realized.

He was wrong.

Deadly wrong.

Fear spread throughout his body.

I'm going to die!

Run!

Every mutated cell within his body screamed those words.

Only,

it was far too late now.

The abyss apostle suddenly found that the air all around him seemed to have frozen solid.

Su Wen waved his right hand downward,

and the heavy body of the mutated monster crashed heavily onto its knees before him.

"I, too, once failed to understand what loneliness and solitude truly meant for humanity.

The post-modern master Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote *Fear and Trembling*, once said:

To find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.

And after his passing,

he left only a single sentence upon his tombstone:

'He was a solitary man.'"

Su Wen continued calmly:

"But now, perhaps I understand.

Because I have seen them,

and have become the gravedigger of this island."

[Achievement Unlocked: Inherited from the Island's Will]

[Achievement Description: When the sparks of the multitude converge, it is the day the sacred flame is passed down.]

At this moment,

as the cool, damp sea breeze of the South Pacific blew past,

Su Wen gazed at the monster before him with merciless eyes and delivered the final verdict:

"Do not waste your fantasies on your deities.

I.

Kevin Ed.

Swear in the name of the 'Afterglow of the Lamp'.

Even after your death, your turbid, filthy soul shall never return to the abyss."

The deep-blue micro-light condensed into a long sword in his hand.

In an instant,

the blade swept across.

The monster before him was incinerated into nothingness within the pale blue light in the blink of an eye.

Following that,

Su Wen did not halt his movements.

Instead,

he elegantly raised this long sword condensed from the radiance of the lamp.

The azure blade pointed toward the countless ugly aberrations ahead of him.

Instantly,

he moved.

His figure was so swift that transcendents on the distant warships and coastline could not even catch a glimpse of it.

A single slash cut cleanly through two deep-sea aberrations.

Simultaneously,

Su Wen said to the heroic spirits:

"Perhaps I am not a noble person, but what you have done—

I can affirm that from a thousand years ago until now, it has saved countless people."

A pale blue figure gracefully bowed to Su Wen.

[Samoa Islands, the fifth Storm Watcher, Edward Jasper, fulfills the 'Lamp Vow' and returns to the Silver Sea.]

Next,

his pace accelerated further.

Another swing of the sword.

"I won't forget the pale ale.

If you were in this era, as a bartender, I could even mix you a complimentary 'Fantasia Vodka'. I think Baldwin, you would certainly enjoy it."

The bearded man laughed heartily and patted him on the shoulder,

expressing his affirmation.

[Samoa Islands, the twelfth Coast Watcher, Nathaniel Neil Baldwin, fulfills the 'Lamp Vow' and returns to the Silver Sea.]

Then,

Su Wen's figure wove through the battlefield.

He was the gravedigger of the island,

and also the ferryman who erased regrets for the departed.

Therefore,

every single moment he swung his sword was accompanied by the joyful departure of a heroic spirit.

"Harry Monroe, in this era, human civilization has conquered the Black Death."

[Samoa Islands, the twenty-seventh Coast Watcher, Harry Monroe, returns.]

...

"Ian, would you mind letting me finish reading the remaining books for you?"

[Samoa Islands, the seventy-fifth Coast Watcher, Ian Martin, returns.]

...

Until the very last figure.

"When I saw these things,

I should have known

that I was long no mere passing traveler.

Anthony, your research is worthy of being archived in the highest-specification library in this world."

"I understand,"

the scholar said with a gentle smile:

"Take care of Phyllis for me."

[Samoa Islands, the one hundred and twelfth Coast Watcher, Anthony Eleanor, fulfills the 'Lamp Vow' and returns to the Silver Sea.]

At this time,

the Samoa Islands in early autumn were enveloped by the storm exclusion zone.

Yet that heavy darkness could ultimately no longer conceal the faint light.

Su Wen stood not far from the white monument at the center of the cemetery.

All around him

lay hundreds of fallen Surging Tide Cult abyss apostles, their breaths completely cut off.

Yet none of this was crucial.

With a slow movement that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand jun, he raised the deep blue long sword in his hand high above his head.

In an instant,

the azure sword light tore through the skies a thousand meters high.

The lamp's light condensed,

transforming the final wills left behind by all the watchers over thousands of years

into the power to shatter the storm.