Chapter 1839 - 1838: ’The Sweetener’ (Extended - )

In the desert

He Ao’s clone lifted his head, following the towering stele, and slowly turned his gaze upward to the top of the stele.

There was nothing at the top of the stele, only a sharp tip.

This pointed tip, together with the stele, stood there like a towering arrowhead pointing towards the sky.

In that position in the sky, there was only a vast azure sky, and the reflection of the massive planet nearly covering it.

At such a close distance, He Ao could almost see the vast expanses of gray-white cities and the artificially demarcated, verdant nature reserves on the planet.

He Ao had visited that planet several times and had always viewed its magnificent complete form from afar.

But this was the first time He Ao, standing on the ground of the Main World, was able to see that planet so clearly.

Moreover, in his field of view, in his perception, that planet was fast approaching, nearing this vast terrain.

With this gaze, the invisible force of cognition was once again acting on this clone’s body, and unbeknownst to him, his head slowly lowered, and his sight gradually leveled.

Eventually, his field of view dropped to the level it was at the very beginning, only able to see a slightly higher position above the prophecy text.

Simultaneously, he could feel his memory becoming increasingly blurred, as if some force was trying to make him ’forget’ everything he had just seen.

This seemed to be some kind of error restoration mechanism, used to maintain the normal operation of the entire ’cognitive cover structure’ after an anomaly occurs.

But He Ao’s memory was not stored in the clone, rather in the soul of the main body; though this invisible force was strong, it was still quite challenging to completely cover He Ao’s memory.

While pondering, He Ao turned his gaze away from the stele to the ice field on the other side, and the desert beyond it.

But with his gaze, his sight naturally lowered, such that even when he raised his eyes to the highest point, he could only see some of the horizon and the outline at the edge of the sky.

He Ao reached out his hand and touched his neck.

At this moment, his neck was actually in a lowered position.

No wonder so many people have neck pain; this state of passively having one’s head lowered, while cognition is veiled and unable to perceive one’s own bowed head, the muscles of the body naturally react.

Keeping the head lowered, maintaining a similar posture, the neck will inevitably ache.

He Ao withdrew his gaze and looked once more at the stele before him, staring at the prophecy text that shimmered on it.

As this cognitive barrier shattered, scattered memories once again surfaced in his mind.

He picked up his phone, opened the message interface, and found the message Liu Zhengyun sent him last night.

He finally understood why a feeling of unease had arisen in his heart, leading him to instinctively seek out Liu Zhengyun.

Because before he entered the Copy World, Liu Zhengyun had sent a message informing him that the ruin was approaching the space outside the Main World.

Moreover, this time it seemed to be a real ruin.

But when He Ao returned from the dungeon world, the cognition of everyone in the Main World had been distorted.

Even Liu Zhengyun, who sent the message, had ’forgotten’ that he had sent it.

Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn’t forgotten but rather ignored, ignored the message, and ignored the knowledge they had already acquired.

He Ao once again searched through his memory and was astonished to find that when he hurried to Liu Zhengyun’s office, Liu Zhengyun seemed to be examining the data related to the ruin’s advent, with that photograph placed at the center of the desk.

But at that time, both his and Liu Zhengyun’s ’attention’ were focused on the photographs taken from other angles placed at the edges of those materials.

Liu Zhengyun’s previous message stated that at the current rate at which the ruin was approaching, within twenty-four hours at most, the advent of the ruin would touch the Main World’s atmosphere.

Calculating the time, it had already been over ten hours since the ruin’s advent.

Though in reality, the ruin was still situated unknown distances and time zones beyond the Main World, it was evident that the God of Machinery was trying to truly allow the ruin to traverse time and space, and arrive in the Main World.

He Ao was uncertain whether the touch of this ruin apparition to the Main World’s atmosphere meant that the ruin would truly cross the time-space gap with the Main World and descend upon it.

But even if not, it likely wasn’t far off.

The series of signs indicated, the God of Machinery genuinely seemed to have arrived in person upon the ruin.

Once the ruin descended in the Main World, He Ao would directly face a true divine being.

Although He Ao’s encounters with the God of Machinery in the dungeon world hadn’t been frequent, lacking the direct comparison with friendly gods, previous experiences indicate that the God of Machinery, even if not among the top tier of divine beings, was formidable.

He had previously directly intervened, attempting to oppose a good friend who pursued the Tuning Master.

And that he dared to risk offending a good friend by sheltering the Tuning Master was likely because of confidence in himself.

He Ao gazed at the third line of text on the stele.

[The eternal greatness descends from the starry sky.]

Now, the God of Machinery was truly coming; this time, even before his advent, he directly distorted the cognition of everyone in the Main World.

If not for the persistently transmitted sense of unease in the Main World and the ’interference’ and ’reminder’ by the backstage deity who placed this prophecy stele, He Ao might have been left in the dark until the last moment.

Of course, letting prey remain unaware of the approaching slaughter knife, allowing them to spend their final days in blissful happiness, is in some sense ’merciful.’

Incidentally, it also extinguishes the prey’s chance of resistance.

Even though He Ao ultimately discovered the reminders, the time left until the descent of the ruin was less than ten hours.

To muster the strength to oppose a true divine being within ten hours?

There’s quite an idea there.

No wonder when the Navigator descended earlier, He Ao had already considered that the God of Machinery might come, but he waited to strike because he was biding his time for something significant here.

At this moment, the situation wherein that white-haired figure happened to receive the Order Divine Revelation at this point in time could also be explained; it was the bomb and smoke screen left by the God of Machinery, to keep the people of the Main World preoccupied, preventing them from focusing their thoughts upon the sky, thereby reducing the likelihood of cognitive barriers going wrong.

He nearly calculated all possible circumstances, and made every move cautiously, leaving no gaps.

Even though He Ao now discovered the cognitive barrier, and found the ruin advent, it seemed to have little use.

He Ao rubbed his cheeks.

Regardless, the God of Machinery’s advent undoubtedly involved some sort of ritual, and surely one that had matured conditions after long preparations.

Otherwise, the God of Machinery would’ve arrived already, not waited until now.

The Velora could still undertake a few long-distance journeys; He Ao indeed had the choice to go directly to the ruin to see if he could disrupt the God of Machinery’s ritual.

Of course, more likely, just as emerging from the depths of space-time, he would be directly pinched off by the lurking God of Machinery.

Yet, the situation hadn’t progressed to that point; after all, some also don’t wish to see the God of Machinery succeed.

He Ao gazed at the stele before him, raising his eyebrow slightly, "Now, it’s your turn to put your cards on the table."

The deity behind the stele didn’t seem to have such deep mystical connections with the Main World, nor seemed to have had long-term schemes like the God of Machinery in the ruin.

He did have a prior opportunity to establish a stable intervention in the Main World, during that previous Historical World occasion.

But He Ao directly destroyed his plan.

Now, squeezing out a stele is probably already the limit.

So now, if he wants to intervene in the Main World, he can only do so by leveraging He Ao’s power, by leveraging He Ao’s influence on the Main World, to complete some sort of plan in just a few hours and disrupt the God of Machinery’s schemes.

At this moment, from the perspective of opposing the God of Machinery, the divine being behind the stele and He Ao are natural allies.

In fact, the divine being behind the stele is the one who most wishes for He Ao to be completely overpowered by the God of Machinery, leaving him totally helpless.

Only this way would He Ao willingly collaborate with the divine being behind the stele.

And along with He Ao’s words, the stele still didn’t undergo any changes, only the text engraved on the stele continued to flicker slightly.

This guy can’t possibly give no hints or plans; otherwise, all his previous efforts would be wasted.

Unless his ’plan’ was revealed from the start.

He Ao gazed at the prophetic text.

These few lines of prophetic text were not written in the language of the Main World or Denis text but instead were some sort of transcendent script similar to Denis text.

This script possesses a characteristic that allows any reader, regardless of language or culture, to instantly comprehend its meaning.

Previously, He Ao only glanced at this text without taking much note of it.

At this moment, with He Ao’s gaze, the flickering brightness of the first two lines of text seemed to intensify slightly.

He Ao gazed at these words, suddenly realizing that the first two lines were somewhat ’complex’.

Tightly intertwined patterns enveloped these words, forming intricate designs.

This was a sort of mysticism array.

He Ao immediately understood.

In his mind, he reconstructed the patterns of these two lines of text, continually attempting to strip away the true text, then linking the remaining designs.

A complex mystical ritual array appeared in his mind.

Accompanying it, related knowledge also surfaced in his mind.

Of course, calling it complex is because the ritual array contained complicated knowledge; in terms of operation and implementation, this array was almost the simplest high-level mystical array He Ao had ever seen.

The whole structure of the array was exceptionally elegant, each part interlocking, and its operation and setup were especially simple, with a very large margin for error.

Unlike the rigorous perfection of the God of Knowledge, the array provided by the divine being behind the stele seemed to have been specially optimized for the operator.

Even a student could set up an effective array by following the correct steps.

Only the effect might be slightly reduced.

This approach was quite similar to how He Ao designed some arrays.

In this regard, the divine being behind the stele resonated a bit with He Ao.

Of course, providing such a specifically optimized array was evidently due to a concern that He Ao might be a mysticism idiot unable to quickly grasp such an array.

Secondly, it was likely an intention for He Ao to propagate this array, allowing more people to ’master’ it.

Having quickly organized the array, He Ao also grasped the array’s ’function’.

That is ’shielding high positional powers.’

Activating this array can shield interference from super high positional grade powers.

To put it plainly, this array can block the interference of the God of Machinery’s cognitive impediment.

And the price is ’life.’

Constructing an array requires the sacrifice of a large number of lives, and its effective range is only very limited.

In the world of mysticism, life is merely a material.

He Ao temporarily put aside the research on the array, shifting his gaze to the latter two lines of text.

The latter two lines of prophetic text were also filled with intricate patterns, seemingly hiding some sort of mystical ritual.

However, when He Ao attempted to deconstruct these patterns as he did before, he found only unintelligible runes, which could not form any ritual array or contain any mystical knowledge.

It seemed as if, for the sake of symmetry with the upper two lines, they were made to be densely packed with patterns.

He Ao raised his head to look at the stele before him.

Evidently, this ritual array to shield cognitive barriers was the ’help’ offered by the divine being behind the stele to He Ao.

But merely shielding the cognitive barrier’s power can only allow more people to see the relic’s descent; it doesn’t provide any possibility of opposing the God of Machinery.

Either He Ao’s understanding was flawed, or the divine being behind the stele still concealed other elements it hadn’t presented, with this ritual serving as a display of its own power and a ’test.’

He Ao gazed at the text on the stele, slightly raised an eyebrow, and retreated, leaving the frozen region.

As he departed, the flickering light on the stele gradually dimmed until it vanished, as if it had never existed.

——

Beidu · Southern Slaughterhouse

He Ao walked along the deserted road, looking at the surrounding empty factory buildings.

This is Beidu’s largest slaughterhouse, under the Beidu Grain and Meat Supply Group, occupying about two hundred thousand square meters, with a daily slaughter capacity of ten thousand heads.

The workers here had long been evacuated before He Ao arrived, leaving only livestock confined within the factory.

After thoroughly deconstructing the array, He Ao had already discovered that while the array from the stele divine being required numerous lives, it didn’t demand much from souls, only requiring substantial blood and flesh.

By increasing the supply of blood and flesh, the deficiency in the soul could be compensated for.

Using humans for the array’s sacrifice was optimal, achieving the best effect.

However, using livestock could, at a minimum, replace humans, reaching the minimal effect.

He Ao lifted his hand, activating pathways of light on the road beneath the sunlight.

This was the array he had already had someone assist in rapidly setting up before he came.

Pale gray light glowed atop this array, causing the entire factory area to tremble violently.

The sealed slaughter chambers emitted slight shivers.

Blood flowed invisibly along the pathways, seeping into the light paths on the ground.

He Ao tensed his body, sensing the anomaly within the surrounding array.