Only those who dare to gaze into the abyss stand as true human beings.

Four a.m.

Another brief moment of rest.

There’s something that has been lodged in my chest for a long time, and I want to write it down.

It concerns an incident that happened while I was in the middle of writing GHOST INDEX.

By then, the book was nearly finished.

When I told a certain elder that I was working on GHOST INDEX, what I received was not encouragement or praise, but a warning—

a warning that carried the clear implication:

“If you keep going, you will be destroyed.”

So I confronted him head‑on.

Not with calm debate, but with something much closer to a two‑hour argument.

In the end, I gave up.

I realized that those who claim to hate demons often have no idea what a “demon” actually is.

He—and millions like him—have long lost even the most basic ability to discern truth, after three generations of continuous indoctrination.

For example, he believes that an ordinary person cannot meet a mayor, cannot enter a city hall, cannot participate in elections or be elected.

No matter how many examples I gave—examples that are commonplace in most countries—his response was always the same:

“All of that is fake.”

Yes. He truly believes that.

When he finally understood he could not persuade me, he repeated the same line over and over:

“When you’re abroad, never touch politics.”

Of course I know he meant it sincerely.

It was precisely because he cared for me that he didn’t want me to face the fear he once faced.

At that moment, I found him pitiful.

Most people will probably never understand where that pity comes from.

People who only care about where to go for their next vacation cannot imagine realities they themselves have never lived through.

My elder does not believe in justice or in the existence of any moral order.

He believes the world is still trapped in the same law‑of‑the‑jungle state as a century ago, that every nation is equally rotten—

even those that “look beautiful” are merely deceiving their citizens,

and beneath the surface they still devour flesh, drink blood, and grind bones to dust.

Honestly, I should applaud the “celestial nobles.”

They have achieved their goal.

They have successfully conditioned the populace into Pavlov’s dogs.

And those dogs do not even realize it—

they take pride in being dogs, and feel ashamed of being human.

I had to finish GHOST INDEX.

It was something I owed myself.

That was what I believed at the time.

And later—

I finished it.

By VON(壹叔瘋神)