Outworld Liberators-Chapter 182: A Parade Big Enough to Swallow a Man’s Faults

Chapter 182: A Parade Big Enough to Swallow a Man’s Faults

Radeon knew his disciples would not be protagonists this time. There were too many bodies.

Too many moving parts. The operation was too large for any one face to carry.

He stood apart and let Myridion Seersight sink into the ground.

His golden eye burned brighter, and the world peeled open. Streets became veins. Cellars became cavities.

Under the stone, cut deliberately deep, narrow routes threaded through abandoned shafts.

Mine carts flew along them, wheels giving a soft shriek on the rails as men tried to escape with whatever they could carry.

Radeon watched. He memorized. He did not speak. He did not tell the cultists those routes existed.

That knowledge was for Radeon Terraces. For his first shrine in this crumbling world.

A shrine needed arteries. A shrine needed hidden doors. Then the ghosts moved.

On the far side of the underground, wraiths already waited. They did not chatter. They did not bargain. They collected.

By morning it was done. The captured were not a few hundred, not even a few thousand.

They stood in lines that ran a mile, then ten miles, then more, two great rivers of people pressed shoulder to shoulder.

Some cried. Some stared dead-eyed. Some prayed and could not remember the words.

After the mess, Eldric ran his boards. Notices went up. A clean title stamped across them in bold ink.

Cooperation of Radeon Terraces and Contractcrown of Plunder Alp. For Peace and Fairness.

They chose the Radeon Terraces Arena.

At first, the ghost attendants held them back with polite hands and hard shoulders.

The crowd grumbled, but stayed, because everyone had learned what happened when people Eldric.

Then the Arena changed.

The decent structure shifted with a groan that vibrated in the teeth. Stone slid. Hidden beams unlocked.

Seats unfolded from walls that had never shown seams. The place that had once held twenty thousand began to stretch.

It expanded. It kept expanding.

When it finished, looking at it made the mind stumble.

It was as if the Arena had been lying about its size its whole life, and now decided to tell the truth.

A hundred times larger did not feel like an exaggeration.

Admission was free.

No one dared to shove. No one dared to push. People filed in with the tense obedience. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

They sat where they were directed. They kept their hands visible.

By the time the last of them entered, Eldric was already at the center.

He stood under the open sky like a man who had always belonged there. Calm. Composed. A healer’s face that did not show strain.

Beside him stood Tiberius. He was used to speaking through men.

If he had something to say, he told his dogs and let their mouths carry it.

Now he had to address the masses himself. Now he had to shift public sentiment and show sincerity.

Eldric had coached him for this. Trained him. Corrected his posture. Smoothed his tone.

Taught him where to pause so a crowd could swallow the words.

Eldric rose at the center of the Arena as if the stone itself had stood up with him. The vast seats held their breath.

Even the ones who had come angry kept their mouths shut.

He spread his hands, palms out.

"Has everyone taken their meal? Nothing out of the ordinary today, so we shall not be handing out free meals."

Laughter rippled through the crowd, genuine and warm. Tiberius felt it like a hand sliding into a pocket.

The man could do that. Eldric could make thousands of strangers feel included with one plain joke and a soft look.

Eldric nodded as if pleased they still knew how to laugh. Then he let the smile fade, slow and natural.

"Let me ask you. What is justice?"

He turned his head, not sweeping the crowd as a mass, but as if he were looking into faces one by one.

"Righteousness. Morality. Magnanimity. What are those? Anyone."

No one answered. Not because they did not have words.

Because they were hunting for the kind of answer that would not shame them in front of this many eyes.

Eldric did not let them drown in thought. He cut it clean.

"Simple. Those are nothing but words. One mouth to another."

A hush followed, thicker than silence. High above, fabric rustled as people listened more intently.

"Listen well. If you asked me what I was when I was a young boy, I was called dumb."

"Talentless. Lackluster. A boy who would be thrown out sooner or later."

Tiberius saw heads tilt. Mouths gaped. The crowd liked a climb.

Everyone loved a man who began low and rose high.

"Yet here I am, standing right in front of you. Now what are those hurtful things said to me? Also words. Nothing more."

Eldric held the pause after that last word, long enough for sympathy to ripen.

He was brewing them. Tiberius could almost hear it, a low bubbling under the surface.

People who had been ready to spit at Tiberius’s name now pacified Eldric’s story.

Eldric turned slightly, just enough to open the center to Tiberius. The gesture looked humble. It was not. It was a handoff.

Tiberius stepped forward. His throat tightened at the size of them.

The Arena stretched wider than his instincts could accept. This was a sea of men.

He bowed anyway.

The sound of it traveled. Not his bow. The reaction. A swell of suppressed gasps, like a single creature inhaling.

Men like Tiberius did not bow in public. Men like Tiberius made others bend.

He kept his head lowered a beat longer than comfort. Then he lifted it and faced them.

"I apologize to everyone." He paused, voice solemn, then continued.

"Senior Eldric here has enlightened me on what was happening around. My men killed his men due to greed."

"I should not be here. I might be undead already if it was me. However Senior Eldric gave me a chance."

Tiberius could feel Eldric behind him like a wall. Not threatening. Not comforting.

"Life for me is not a word. It is far important. No money can buy it again once lost," Tiberius said.