Chapter 236: Game Pool

Bai Liu commented simply: "This sounds like something I would do in other timelines."

Tang Er shot him a look, "If that's all this is, it's just one of your many criminal accomplishments."

He paused, "And I couldn't have remembered it until now."

Bai Liu sidled over to Tang Er and fought, "What else happened back there?"

"...... After Armand's death, Georgia regained his sobriety, but the fact that Armand had avenged his death devastated him once again, and Georgia was so distraught that he tried to work but couldn't, and the Heresy Bureau had to force him to take an extended vacation. ......"

"After his vacation, Georgia locked himself in Armand's room and sat there all day. I went to see him several times, tried to talk to him, to ask him what Bai Liu had done to him, but he just mumbled to himself in a haunted way - this isn't how it's supposed to be, this isn't the future that I saw, this isn't how it's supposed to be, this isn't how it's supposed to be, this isn't how it's supposed to be. The future I see is not like this, it's me who should die, it should be the rest of the world, not Armand ......".

Tang Er typed quietly for a moment, he bit his cigarette and looked up at the four words [Golden Dawn] on the whiteboard:

"Later I asked his coworkers if Georgia had said what Bai Liu actually did to him, and his coworkers told me that Georgia said that Bai Liu just showed him a glimpse [of the future]."

"No one knows what Georgia saw [in the future], but what happened next was beyond my expectations."

Tang Er hit looked to Bai Liu : "Bai Liu destroyed six secret strongholds of the Heresy Disposal Bureau in a row, snatching away quite a few of the high-risk heretics that we had taken in, and although we also managed to kill the clowns that came to destroy the heretics, we still suffered heavy losses."

"But the scariest thing about this isn't the loss thing, it's how Bai Liu knew about the secret strongholds of the Heresy Processing Bureau, the exact geographic location of the high-risk strongholds that hold the Extraordinarily High Level Red Heretics has been encrypted through all kinds of tortured heresy layers, and only Georgia knows about it, and can't easily talk about it."

"-unless it's spoken to someone this Georgia trusts completely, and in Georgia's mind, that person will only be Armand."

Tang Er hit a soft sigh, "Although we didn't want to believe that Georgia would betray the Heresy Authority by telling Bai Liu the location of the secret stronghold, we started investigating Georgia out of an abundance of caution."

"Georgia passed 127 rounds of balance testing, and we confirmed that he hated Bai Liu and would never betray the Heresy Authority and turn his back on peace and justice, but in the end, all parties weighed in and kept Georgia in his position for the time being, as well as turning the overt investigation of Georgia underground."

"Outside the game on Georgia's investigation into the bottleneck, but within the game, I saw Bai Liu's team suddenly more a masked reserve team members, strong attack, kill cold and decisive, like a killing machine, appearance and height in all aspects and Georgia is very similar, but the most suspicious is his skills. "

Tang Er hit gazed at Bai Liu for a while before sidling up to take a drag on his cigarette and said in a low, husky voice, "His skill is a bow and arrow called the Bow of Retrospection, which can turn back the time of a person's physical body to three hours ago."

"The time lapse between Armand's death and our discovery of his body was exactly three hours."

Tang Er took two deep breaths, "I found Georgia and asked if this extra reserve on Bai Liu's team was him, and he admitted it."

"I don't understand why he chose to join Bai Liu's team, Georgia passed the Scales test and I'm sure that deep down he hates Bai Liu and yearns for peace and justice, but somehow is willing to become a bow and arrow in Bai Liu's hand."

"So I questioned him as to why, and Georgia said that no matter how hard he tried to undo it, it wasn't going to be a future that would lead to peace and justice or a future where Armand would be around, and that he was going to correct that future, and that only Bai Liu had the means to change it."

"So even though he hates Bai Liu beyond measure, he is willing to be a bow stained with the blood of innocents in Bai Liu's hands for the right future, and the moment Armand returns to his future, he will die for his sins, and that is the right future."

In the middle of the conversation, the cigarette in Tang Er Ta's hand had reached the end, Bai Liu handed over an ashtray and lifted his eyelids to look at Tang Er Ta, who was suddenly silent: "Finally, what about Georgia's ending in this world line?"

Tang Er fights without saying a word and puts out his cigarette in the ashtray Bai Liu hands him, turning his head right to Bai Liu to exhale the last smoke ring in his throat, "He followed Bai Liu to win the league and was granted a wish, I don't know what he wished for, but he killed himself the next day."

"Georgia died where Armand died, and we found his body three hours later."

------

"I hope Armand is resurrected in the right future."

Georgia, in her sleep, saw herself, covered in blood, kneeling in front of an unseen light and making a wish, a rusty silver streamlined longbow at his side.

He was vaguely aware of a very impressive presence in the light before him - a godlike presence.

God asked him, "Don't you need to live in the right future?"

Georgia saw herself shaking her head, "I don't deserve that kind of future, I made poor choices and I am responsible for them, death is the future I deserve now."

So God asked him again, "You are a good winner, don't you want other people to exist in the right future too?"

Georgia shook her head again, "Wrong futures are the result of every choice made by every person in this world together, and just as I should be held responsible for my own improper choices, so should every person in this world, who should bear the burden of a brutal future for their indulgent desires."

God then added, "The same is true of Armand, you are indulging his mistakes and giving him a right future after he has made a wrong choice."

"It's your selfishness and desire, Georgia, it's your injustice."

Georgia closed his eyes for a long time and hung his head in silence, and the blood fell from his long eyelashes to the ground like pity's own tears.

"Yes, it's my selfishness as a brother, I know he did something wrong and he should be held accountable for it, I just wish all the sins were on me alone and not Armand."

"But I know it's impossible."

God says, "Both you and Armand should pay the price for your selfishness and injustice."

"As punishment, you will forever lose the future of having Armand, and Armand will never exist having you as a brother."

"Remove the moment of birth and you will be a pair of brothers who will always be at odds."

Georgia tried to wake up from this vaguely disturbing dream, but no matter how much he struggled, the dream continued, becoming more fragmented with interlocking fragments.

He saw his lowered head posturing respectfully as he half-kneeled before someone hidden in the gloom, and the back of his bare white neck was covered with crisscrossing dark red whip marks.

The man slowly straightened a long black whip in his hand and lazily lifted Georgia's chin with the toe of his leather shoe, so that the dreaming Georgia finally got a good look at the man's face.

The man was seated in a wide leather chair and possessed an extremely handsome and harmless Asian face with a very friendly smile and an idle tone, as if he were making small talk, "Georgia, I'm very pleased with you."

"I know you didn't mean to submit to me, but your grades are just too good." Bai Liu lowered his eyes and lifted Georgia's jaw more and more with the handle of his long whip instead of his toes.

Georgia's slender neck crumbled to the breaking point under Bai Liu's playful, malicious uplift, the knot in her throat sliding restrainedly up and down, the whip marks above her collarbone unmistakable.

"In one game you can kill a dozen or so ordinary players who have nothing to do with you without hesitation, the information of six secret strongholds you can also say give it to me, and the death of hundreds of your former team members news put in front of you, and you don't even blink an eye."

Bai Liu appreciated in a sigh-like tone, "Whether it's looks or execution, you're perfect as a machine."

"Someone in the game complimented you on being a beautiful spirit without emotion." Bai Liu reached out and stroked Georgia's emotionless face with his thumb, "I would agree with that, you don't look anything like the divine and noble Captain Georgia you were."

"It truly amazes me that the death of someone close can bring about such a change in you."

Bai Liu withdrew his hand as he gripped the whip thoughtfully, "I went through the same thing, but the only change it brought to me was a slight loss of control over my anger when I saw your face, which is too similar to your brother's."

His voice was so lazy and light that one would never have guessed that he would whip Georgia as he spoke.

But the kneeling Georgia, as if accustomed to the fact that Bai Liu would whip him, merely shuddered stoically, then lowered his head again and did not move.

"Let's see, this time when you shot those poor innocents in the game, where did you attack them at their lethal points?" Bai Liu inquired faintly, "I'm sure our Captain Georgia remembers, right?"

Georgia's eyelashes fluttered very slightly as he replied softly, "I remember."

Bai Liu half-lidded his eyes, "You should be punished for your brutal killings by taking off your clothes."

Georgia stood up and obediently removed his clothing, his body covered in a variety of still-unabated crisscrossing whip marks, like a viper circling his waist and stomach and thighs, wrapping itself around his white skin and spitting out its letters.

Sleeping Georgia breathes heavily - in a trance he realizes that each whip mark means he's killed a man.

The man before him was torturing him.

This man knew he would not feel pain from a simple physical whipping, but he would feel extreme pain from his own impurity, incorrectness, and injustice.

So whenever they had a match, and when Georgia killed someone on the field, this man would, after the match, make Georgia give the name of the man he killed, and the part of the field where the man got hit with an arrow, and then give Georgia a whiplash in the same spot.

Bai Liu is using these scars and pain to keep reminding Georgia of a brutal truth: what I did to you was not one ten-thousandth as cruel as what you did to those people.

To hide the whip marks, Georgia wore a uniform with a long collar zipper that went all the way up to her jaw, and after enduring this emotional outburst from Bai Liu, Georgia stood still and dressed, bowed her head in a respectful salute and exited Bai Liu's room.

Georgia saw herself making her way unseeingly through a back corridor to the door of a certain room, opened it and walked in, then immediately rushed next to the toilet and vomited, scratching her body in agony as she did so at the painful whiplash marks on her body.

He seems to be trying to vomit something out of his body that makes him self loathing, but no matter what all he can do is spit out water, and eventually the act of forced vomiting causes Georgia's entire body to go into spasms.

Georgia kept torturing himself in every way possible, he even used a pocket knife to make marks on those whip marks, trying to deepen them to punish himself, Georgia gasped silently as tears continued to well up in his eyes.

Eventually Georgia saw himself collapsing on the bed, exhausted, lost in thought, curled up in a ball holding a pocket watch, which he seemed to want to open, but in the end just kissed it, closed his tear-stained eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

Georgia recognized the pocket watch, knowing that it contained an old photo of Armand and him.

--------

Bai Liu sent Tang Er out of the room, and they chatted as they walked down the street.

"I'm curious, you must have told the Heresy Authority immediately after you probed Georgia for betraying them." Bai Liu sidled over to Tang Er to fight, "What did the Heresy Authority do with him?"

Tang Er hit shrugged putting on his jacket and turned around, "First Georgia was outlawed from his position, then an investigation began into the reasons for Georgia's betrayal, only to have Georgia defect just as this investigation was beginning."

"There were two theories within the Heresy Authority at the time, the first of which said that Georgia had been contaminated by Bai Liu with some sort of heresy, and that the mental descension was what led to her being controlled by Bai Liu."

"But there is no way to explain Georgia telling Bai Liu the geographic location of the secret stronghold - even if Georgia was crazy, Bai Liu could not have gotten the secret location of the secret stronghold out of Georgia's mouth if he could not get the crazy Georgia to trust him 100 percent. Georgia's mouth to get the location of the secret stronghold."

"There's another theory that some people have speculated ......" Here Tang Er hit a weird hesitation and his face twisted, "Some people have speculated that Georgia, because of her Stockholm episode fell in love with you, and that's why she was completely controlled by you."

Bai Liu raises an eyebrow, "You guys are pretty nosy for a district."

"...... This isn't gossip, and in order to find out the truth, we have to hypothesize from all angles." Tang Er hit the tough defense, then glanced at Bai Liu and subtly added, "Another reason why such claims would have been prevalent at the time is that Georgia always had some inexplicable whip marks on her body, and your ...... Bai Liu's weapon just happened to is the long whip."

Bai Liu: "......"

Does he from other timelines play so strong?