Chapter 1461: The Choice

“Priest!”

“Fr. Anthony!”

The blurry voices echoed by his ear, as if someone were calling out something.

Who?

Who is Anthony?

He couldn’t figure it out. He only felt these voices were noisy, disturbing his slumber. He was so very tired now, only wanting to sink into sleep; as for whether he would ever wake again, in his view, that no longer mattered.

In his current state, he did not understand the so‑called words “wake up,” “Anthony,” “future,” or the meanings they contained.

He was more like some creature with only the simplest of thoughts, soaking in a slightly viscous liquid, wrapped in warmth, currents of water brushing over his body like a woman’s gentle caress, soothing his spirit, letting him sink into the depths of darkness, to sleep there forever.

There was nothing wrong with this. Yes, nothing wrong at all.

Within his simple mind, a trace of more complex thought surfaced, and those complex thoughts in turn hooked out something like a dreamlike scene.

Yes, he should not wake up; he should just keep sleeping like this, deeply and heavily.

Once he woke, he would have to… have to face something. He wasn’t sure what, but he could feel it was nothing good. Faced with such crushing pressure, in his present state he wanted all the more to run away, just like his current situation.

To drift off in a daze, to abandon all thought, like a stray dog whose only troubles are food and drink; nothing else matters.

This is good, perfectly good.

“Priest! Fr. Anthony!”

The shouting grew clearer, laced with numerous screams of agony.

He felt a bit irritable, only wishing these damned voices would vanish at once, yet they only grew louder and louder.

“No… no, I’ve had enough of this kind of Hell.”

He muttered, and then all that noise vanished. A cold mask emerged from the darkness.

“Are you going to run away, Anthony?” the steel mask asked him.

“Me?” He was slightly stunned, then more memories surged up like a tide. His voice trembled with terror. “I am… Anthony.”

“So, are you going to run?”

The mask pressed on. Anthony looked at it; the once exquisite, ornate surface was now covered with countless scratches and cracks, grime packed in the fissures, blood congealed upon it, leaving dark red patterns.

“Run…”

He murmured, his body uncontrollably shaking.

People are fragile and cowardly—Demon Hunters are no exception. They have undergone the Ascension of Secret Blood, but just as the Alchemists say, no matter how thorough the Ascension and refinement, from beginning to end there is always some residue within the substance, impossible to remove.

Some say that residue is the essence of humanity, the essence of its baseness, like a brand etched deep into the soul.

“Your Eminence…”

Anthony remembered it all, felt fear toward the darkness he was about to face, and felt ashamed of his own desire to flee.

He choked on the cold blue seawater, coughing violently, as if he were about to vomit his internal organs out through his throat. Crimson fluid bled into the sea, and he could hear the splashing rush of water. Soon he began to float upward, breaking through the surface.

“Ha… ha…”

Anthony gasped raggedly for breath, blinking. The burning night sky was just above him, and the tide around him receded; it was streams of scarlet blood.

“He’s awake!”

Someone shouted with joy.

Anthony tried to sit up, but the agony coursing through his body left him paralyzed in place, unable to move. He could hear faint sounds from within his own body, his flesh and blood squeezing around the shards of metal buried in him, clinging to instinct to sustain his life.

“What… happened?”

Forcing his head to the side, Anthony saw only a field of burning ruins and vague human shapes. The surrounding clamor never stopped, underlaid by the blasts of shellfire.

He had failed to die. He was still on the battlefield, still in Hell.

“Don’t move yet!”

Someone approached, kneeling beside Anthony, and thrust a blood‑stained pair of pliers into Anthony’s wound.

“Maintain the Secret Blood.”

He spoke as he strained to extract the deeper metal fragments. Blood spurted out and was immediately staunched with bandages.

During all this, Anthony said nothing, his face expressionless. If not for his labored, pain‑wracked breathing, the others might have thought he was already dead.

“Ah… so that’s it?”

Anthony dimly recalled something—the very end of that battle.

The defensive line of Saint Nalos Cathedral had finally collapsed. Endless Soul-Reviving Corpses crawled out from the Gate of Celestial Kingdom, and as time passed, these Soul-Reviving Corpses grew ever stronger. They did not fear the threat of darkness and wantonly unleashed the Secret Blood.

In the end, all manner of bizarre beings appeared, things like the Hundred-Headed Demon. The Demon Hunters struggled desperately to hold them back. In that final, utterly broken assault, Saint Nalos Cathedral began to crumble, the Gate of Celestial Kingdom shattered, and Demons crawled out from the broken bricks, surrounding them.

Anthony and the other Demon Hunters survived only by the sacrifice of several of their own. Those few stepped into the darkness and, before losing their sanity, held back the pursuing Demons.

Then… then came the desperate struggle within the Seven Hills, but as for what happened after, Anthony could no longer clearly remember.

In the last image he saw, Soul-Reviving Corpses were attacking from every direction, wielding Nail Swords mottled and cracked.

Anthony dodged and parried countless strikes, but the continuous battles at last pushed his body past its limits.