Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm-Chapter 283 Choices And Consequences

It always blew my mind how some people were completely unwilling to face the consequences of their actions.

I mean, I knew that I had a choice not to do this, that I could choose not to have all these humans killed by zombies. Hell, I still remember the feeling of the zombies ripping through me, so what type of person did that make me to let someone else experience that pain and hopelessness?

On the other hand, this might be a lot more of a merciful end than what these people might experience if a group of asymptomatic came across them or even if the Reavers did.

Was I trying to justify my actions? I really didn't know.

However, nothing was going to change this course of action, so I would just have to live with the consequences.

I didn't bother to respond to Father Ezekiel. I just stared at him as a zombie came up behind him and took a chunk out of his neck. I watched as his still-beating heart shot arterial spray on everything around him. Luckily, I was out of the splash zone. Otherwise, I was going to have to grab a shower in my space before we went back on the road.

That and throw out my clothes. Blood was a pain in the ass to try and get out sometimes.

"Jezebel," said the man whose pristine white clothes were being saturated with the red of his own blood.

Once again, I didn't bother to really respond. I never believed that Queen Jezebel was as evil as the bible made her seen. In fact, there are a lot of situations where a woman was nothing more than a scapegoat for the decisions that a man made.

Take Eve, for example. She was not the only one to take a bite of the apple of knowledge, but she was credited with the downfall of man. In fact, even the pain that a woman experienced in labor was called the sins of Eve, a punishment for tempting Adam to eat an apple.

In the Middle Ages back on Earth, it was even believed that if a woman didn't experience enough punishment through labor (if it wasn't painful enough), then she was evil and couldn't ever step foot inside the church again.

All that to say, I didn't mind if a narrow-minded, manipulative man called me Jezebel. I would wear that name with pride.

I smiled as a second zombie came up alongside the first and took out another chunk from the priest's throat. Now his head was being balanced on nothing more than a thin spinal cord and maybe a few blood vessels. His mouth was still going as he continued to curse me for his choices, but without his vocal cords, he couldn't make a sound.

I never looked away from his eyes as he bled out, four zombies descending on his remaining corpse to feed.

"You okay?" asked Liu Yu Zeng from where he stood to the left of my throne.

"Yes," I responded with a shrug. When the last body fell to the ground, I stood up and, with a wave of my hand, dissolved my throne. "Chen Zi Han, can you please destroy this wall?" I asked, not really looking at any of my men.

For some reason, I was feeling a bit vulnerable right now, but I couldn't figure out why. Until I could, I would go back to Cerberus and avoid the boys.

Maybe I was feeling vulnerable because of what the boys just witnessed, but I didn't think that I had done anything wrong. I mean, it was his fault for building this thing in the middle of the road. I didn't go looking for him. He was literally blocking me from getting to where I needed to be.

Taking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes. Maybe I was now the one blaming others for my choices instead of owning them.

Fine….

He deserved to die, so I killed him. It was really that simple.

But the people with him? Did they deserve to die simply because they followed him?

Yes, they did.

They might have been innocent at one point in time, but to have been able to follow him this far meant that they were either blindly obedient or that they had a similar mentality as the Father. Either way, they were too stupid to live and continue to infect the last of humanity.

I made the decision to kill them. And I am not sorry… I just don't want the men to hate me because of it. 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝒏𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡．𝙣𝒆𝙩

"We couldn't hate you if we tried," said Wang Chao as he came up behind me just outside of the walls blocking our path forward. Putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me back into his embrace, he kissed my forehead. "And we agree with your actions," he continued as Liu Wei and Liu Yu Zeng came up on either side of me.

Comforted by my men, I watched as the zombies nodded their heads at me before wandering off and disappearing back into the forests around us. They didn't even seem to notice their face, hands, and clothes stained with the blood of the fallen.

"Do you really think that I am the Devil without horns?" I asked as I cocked my head as a huge hole appeared under the 'safe zone' causing the whole thing to collapse. Dust and debris rose into the air as the last stone fell into the crater before Chen Zi Han filled it back in until the roadway was smooth again.

Probably smoother than it was before the end of the world.

"No," said Liu Wei as he lifted my hand and brought it to his lips. "I don't think you are the Devil."

That was it, simple and to the point. No justifying his response, no giving me a long list of reasons why I wasn't the Devil on Earth, nothing. Just a simple 'no'.

And that was enough.

Humming in agreement, I watched as Wang Chao opened the door of Cerberus and smiled as Liu Wei set me down gently inside. "Evil people will always find a way to be evil," said Chen Zi Han as he buckled me into my seat. "Don't let the evil taint of that man infect you in any way. You are so much better than that."