Chapter 1386: The Mysterious Player

The secrets regarding the demon hunters or Ancients, those super-humans created by the mage emperors of Holletta were not what Hao Ren had expected. He initially thought that these super life forms were just experimental beings who stole the authority of the goddess at best. Whoever they were, it would not go beyond the planetary system of Holletta. The truth that these demon hunters were involved directly in the deicidal war was shocking. Even though they knew nothing about the war, their souls, flesh, and existence were inextricably linked to it. They were implanted in the communication network of the goddess of creation as a Trojan virus without them realizing. Through the divine signature code that the demon hunters carried, the “virus” successfully deceived the recognition mechanism of the network and secretly replaced all the ascending nodes. When the deicidal war broke out, on the eve of the goddess’ death, the connection between the Star of Creation and the mortal world was wholly cut off. No one ever thought that the root cause of the network failure came from a barbaric planet in the remote region of the universe.

“The mastermind seems to know the goddess of creation well—incredibly well.” A chill ran up Hao Ren’s spine. The guy who could plot against a true god was a considerable threat. This “third force” was more dangerous than all the opponents he had seen before. The god killers were mighty and ambitious, but they were mere tools to be discarded once the job was done. Lockmarton was powerful and strange, but he was just a mad demigod. Even the Mad Lord, the powerful primordial creature, was just an irrational phenomenon. Those without a thinking mind could not have conspired. It was not difficult to deal with an opponent that did not know how to plot. But this mysterious mastermind almost had everything under its control. It could even manipulate the true God, understand the goddess of creation well, and carry out various sabotage plans before the goddess could even react. The fact that this mysterious enemy still remained in the dark was disturbing.

Raven 12345 slowly nodded. “That guy knew the goddess of creation well. Let us summarize what we have known so far. First of all, it knew all the details of the deicidal war, and maybe, was one of the conspirators. So it could carry out the plans flawlessly, especially it had obtained the runic skills of the deicide. Secondly, the mastermind was not a member of the deicide because its actions had exceeded what the deicide could do in terms of intelligence gathering. At least it could obtain the divine power sample of the goddess of creation, which the killer could not. Thirdly, the mastermind knew the goddess of creation extremely well, even more than the guardians could. It knew in advance that the goddess of creation would contact her people in the universe, so it had the demon hunters blocking the communication network. From this, we know that this mastermind also knew well about the network—the architecture and how it worked—so that it could replace the critical nodes of the network. Finally, the mastermind had never revealed itself during the deicidal war. At least you would not find its activity in the records of the war survivors. There are only two explanations to this: it either hide so well that no one was aware of the existence of a behind-the-scenes ‘player,’ or it had been standing in front of everyone from the beginning. The guardians and the goddess of creation knew the existence of it, but no one knew its true colors and suspected it.”

Hao Ren frowned when Raven 12345 mentioned the last point. “You mean…”

“I guess this ‘third force’ was someone close to the goddess of creation. It had been on the Star of Creation all the while.”

While speaking, Raven 12345 wrote words and drew lines in the air. She listed all the clues and categorized them into a well-organized grid. All the lines pointed to her conclusion.

Below the conclusion, she drew a few more lines for more notes:

“The First Born was the signal relay station for the communication between the goddess of creation and her people. Every planet with a god-made ecosphere had at least one First Born. This First Born was the communication antenna, and also the physical node of the communication network.”

“The replacement of the network node with the Trojan virus essentially overrode the rights of transmission and reception of the signal of the First Born. The primordial demon hunters were implanted into the information network like a virus. This implantation required higher access permission.”

“The pollution happened in the mental network between the First Borns. The mental network between the First Borns and the communication network used by the goddess to contact the lower nodes were physically the same.”

“After the end of the deicidal war, all First Borns showed a tendency of insanity, which was also a kind of pollution.”

“The mastermind was quite familiar with the mental network of the First Borns. It might even have a very high degree of authority in the network—enough to allow the fake nodes formed by the primordial demon hunters to be imported into the normal communication sequence.”

“The modifications made to the network by the mastermind had evaded the eyes of the goddess of creation, and even the detection of the guardians and the First Borns who were the network nodes. This is the most difficult part to explain.”

Raven 12345 listed all the conclusions, conjectures, preconditions, and contradictions. She then stopped and turned her head around slightly. “Hao Ren, look. The mastermind has done many things, most of which could only be completed on the Star of Creation. Besides, it also needed to be in constant contact with the guardians and the goddess to do so. So we can conclude that—”

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“That guy is hiding in plain sight.” After reading the analysis, Hao Ren already had his own conclusion.

“Yup, that guy was around the goddess of creation. The guardians surely knew it.” Light flashed in Raven 12345’s eyes. “The behavior of the goddess of creation suggested that she had no idea what this guy was doing. Otherwise, her distress call at the last moment would not have been sabotaged. So the mastermind had enough time to fiddle the network of the First Borns, collude with the deicide, steal the Tablet of Commandments, and contact the Holletta civilization behind the back of the goddess and guardians. It must have a very high degree of freedom on the Star of Creation and been in frequent contact with the control center of the First Born network. I think Muru should be able to provide you with some intelligence in this respect.”

“That is enough.” Hao Ren felt his brain was pulsating. The short conversation was even more tiring than arguing with Raven 12345 for three hours. “I want to know where the mastermind is now. Since it is such a capable character, how could it simply be blown up in the explosion at the end of the deicidal war?”

“That depends on whether the falling of the Kingdom of God into the Umbral Realm was part of its plan.” Raven 12345’s eyebrows twitched. “The big bang of the divine realm could be the only thing in the deicidal war that no one had foreseen. If the mastermind could foresee it, then it must be still lurking in the Plane of Dreams. Otherwise, it must have fallen into the Umbral Realm together with the Star of Creation.”

Hao Ren scratched his chin in thought. He then looked up. “I think the second scenario is more probable. Since the death of the goddess of creation, this mastermind has never been active again. I have been conducting a large-scale investigation in the Plane of Dreams, but this mysterious guy has never shown up. Most likely it has fallen into the Umbral Realm with the Star of Creation.”

“Most likely it is still alive.” Raven 12345 sighed.

“Yeah, most likely, and probably the most troubling too.”

Hao Ren was sure that the Star of Creation and the surrounding divine realm did not vanish after falling into the Umbral Realm. He came to this conclusion after examining the data he had collected in the Gate of Solenne. The Star of Creation and the divine realm still existed but in a distorted state. They could return to the real world when the right conditions were present. If the mastermind had also fallen into the Umbral Realm, it was most likely alive, which must be taken into consideration.

“You have to be prepared because we are not sure about the situation in the Umbral Realm. All the more so when we are not sure if the mysterious enemy has changed in the past 10,000 years. So we should expect the worst.” Raven 12345 reminded. When Hao Ren nodded in acknowledgment, she continued. “That is all about it for now. The examination is completed. Those volunteers will be restored to their original state soon. But before this, I am interested in the ‘divine burst network’ that you have found in the Plane of Dreams.”

“Oh, I have compiled the information.”

Hao Ren had expected it. So he had compiled the data of the divine burst network into a report while on the return journey. He took out the MDT and uploaded the data directly to Raven 12345’s mental link.

“Is this all?” Raven 12345 brought up a virtual screen, showing the image of the divine burst network. “It doesn’t look complete.”

“The network may have covered the entire observable universe of the Plane of Dreams. My drone cluster is still unable to determine its boundaries—”

“No.” Raven 12345 interrupted him. “What I mean by incomplete is not of the physical structure, but the ‘software’ of this network. The process of proliferation and transmission of information is not quite right.”

“Should I pretend that I understand this time?” Hao Ren said after thinking for a moment.

“You seem to have inherited my shameless attitude.” Raven 12345 squinted at Hao Ren. “Don’t interrupt, I’m serious. Something is wrong with the data network although I can’t tell what it is. My intuition tells me that part of its operating system has been hidden or stripped off. And it was a deliberate action.”