Chapter 665: King Of Fallen
After hanging up the one-way video call, Annan frowned and huddled in the chair, thinking.
No matter how I think about it, something feels off.
If their goal is just to get a lot of Gold Rank Transcenders, then they donât need to go through all this trouble.
There was a high probability that they had already started on the curse shaft.
Then this also meant that they had obtained curse energy.
All they needed to do was to mass produce and then kill dozens of Bronze Rank transcenders to get the âfoundationâ for creating nightmares.
They could simply use curse energy to multiply the rewards of clearing a nightmare dozens or hundreds of times. After clearing the nightmare once, the user would be promoted to Bronze. Clearing another nightmare for the second time would guarantee Silver Rank, and clearing it again would push the user to the peak of Silver Rank. Then, they could get ready to advance to Gold Rank.
The curse shaft provided curse energy that could quickly achieve the above feat⊠It would guarantee many loyal subordinates to enter the Silver Rankâs peak.
There was no danger.
It was a sure-win situation.
However, the Northern Brotherhoodâs goal seemed to be obtaining something with a purity that was âbeyond pure goldâ.
Annan simply found it unreasonable.
Those stupid nobles, desperate to cling to and consolidate their power, werenât the brightest bulbs. They would surely be willing to cross any forbidden line, especially when they were about to kick the bucket if they didnât act.
It didnât seem logical to analyze them by the taboos and IQ of ordinary people.
Their indirect approach seemed too troublesome to gather any timely benefits.
The process was neither safe and controllable, nor labor-saving and fast enough.
Why would those cowardly, short-sighted fools take such a path?
âAfter eliminating all the impossibilities, the only possibility remainsâŠâ Annan murmured.
Then, there was only one outcome left.
There was at least one traitor within the circle of the Northern Brotherhood. At least he had the absolute right to speak that could overwhelm other noble advisors.
However, putting it as a traitor didnât seem accurate either because he didnât care what would happen to Austere-Winter Dukedom. So he was surely not on Annanâs side either.
As a matter of fact, even if those nobles were idiots, the âbrains behind themâ were smart people.
Based on the bits and pieces Longjing Tea gathered from the Saltpeter Ranch, he immediately realized something was off⊠Those advisers must have also seen that the plan wasnât quite right.
However, the plan was still being implemented steadily.
That meant the person who proposed this plan might hold a much higher status than the others. This would explain why, even though others sensed something was off, they couldnât openly object.â
The Saltpeter Ranchâs production of the demonâs blood hinted at the broader plan. This implied the plan was so refined that there was no harm in sharing it with partners.
That set off some major red flags.
Moreover, it wasnât realistic to assassinate Annan using just any random person.
If they had already obtained the âSatiated Gold,â it wouldnât be as simple as sending a few Silver Rank Fallen to assassinate Annan. They would surely send a group of 25 Gold Rank troops to overrun the Frostwhisper Province directly.
Gold Rank Transcender and Gold Rank Fallen were not at the same level.
Kafni once said to Annan that the essence of Transcenderâs power was to use curses to transform the soul, while the essence of Fallenâs power was to use curses to transform the body.
Setting aside the destruction caused by the unstable nature of the Fallen.
The fundamental shortcoming of the Fallen Path was that their souls remained at the âgaseous stageâ of a Bronze Rank transcender.
One of the hallmarks of Fallen was that their souls were âlike a black smokeâ, while Gold Rank transcendersâ souls were âbright like a diamond or rainbowâ. This implied that the demonized Fallen could hardly harness much elemental power.
It was even more impossible for them to sublimate into deities either â because in the ascendancy ritual, only the soul could take the Divine Transporter to enter the Light Realm.
âAll of this was because the quality of their souls was not up to par.
Annan had slightly more detailed information than Kafni.
For example⊠Annan discovered that the âelemental powerâ wasnât the innate ability of this world. It flooded the world after Father Flint ignited the Sageâs Stone.
The Sageâs Stone was the Worldâs Blood in the âimmaterial worldâ, and its status was equivalent to the solidified curse energy.
In other words, Father Flint most likely stole the real Sageâs Stone from the immaterial world.
Before that, the soul that reached the [Dyed] rank was only ânobleâ.
If no one could use the elemental power, then the Ascension Path would be inferior to the Fallen Path until the ascendancy ritual was completed.
This reminded Annan of the battle between immortals and demons.
The Fallen Path was the âbeast wayâ that used curses to transform the body â for a world full of curses, this might be the right path.
Only if the Fallen Path were more effective and powerful than the Transcendence Path, then the Fallen Path would have the value of being handed down.
Otherwise, it would have been eliminated long ago in the thousands or even tens of thousands of years of civilization history.
âThe Enigma of Fate and Dice: A Discourseâ mentioned that âgoing up is a leap while going down is one step at a timeâ. This subtly highlighted the difference between âthe Ascension Pathâ and âthe Fallen Pathâ.
That was why the ascendancy ritual was called the âascendancy ritualâ.
It represented the unique âdifferenceâ exclusive to the Ascension Path.
Since those who learned about the Ascendancy Ritual often associated it with the Ascension Path, the high-ranking transcendents changed the ancient term âAscension Pathâ to âTranscendence Pathâ to better safeguard this secret.
No matter how Father Flint got the Sageâs Stone, the world was filled with elemental power. Only the Ascension Path could fully harness this ability⊠This was an epic patch that buffed the Ascension Pathâs âDyedâ Rank.
Annan immediately realized that the upright deities hoped to increase the number of âdeitiesâ through this ânew patchâ.
He was all too familiar with this approach⊠Using âbuffsâ and ânerfsâ to influence the playersâ behavior was a basic skill for game designers.
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Was it reasonable? NoâŠ
Introducing the âelemental powerâ concept made the âstrong, pure soulâ a tangible and accessible force.
Even if there were more than a dozen demons, only two or three Gold Rank Transcenders with sufficient soul reserves could easily kill them all.
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The two brothers from the Saltpeter Ranch would have been taken out in two swift moves by the Saint, one move for each, if they hadnât possessed the secret of creation. Of course, the Saint was at the Truth Rank.
However, it was evident that the Northern Brotherhood didnât have multiple Gold Rank transcenders.
Because in the entire Austere-Winter Dukedom, there were no wild Gold Rank transcenders at all â Winterâs Hand was confined to Silver Rank. Any unauthorized Silver Rank transcenders trying to further advance in the Austere-Winter Dukedom would be captured, monitored, imprisoned, and expelled by Winterâs Hand.
The current Howling White Tower had not yet elected a new tower master.
So apart from the Daughter of the Storm, Maria, and the âBeauty of Imbalanceâ, Vasika, who could resist the Gold Rank under special circumstances, the only Gold Rank in Austere-Winterâs was Old Grandmotherâs pope, and the Melvin familyâs âthe Divineâ of the Worldâ. The latter two were not affiliated with the Austere-Winter family.
This was the weakest period of the Austere-Winter Dukedom â if the ancestor summoner ritual wasnât counted.
The only reason the Northern Brotherhood didnât come for Austere-Winter Dukedom was because they were rookies.
If the Northern Alliance had two Gold Ranks, they would initiate a war to redistribute the territory. If they had more than three Gold Ranks, they could march into the Frostwhisper Province, detain Annan and Ivan, and then âhold the emperor hostage to command the subordinatesâ.
Therefore, they had not completed the âSatiated Goldâ experiment.
Instead, it was the person who proposed this experiment that restricted them. Otherwise, they might have started mass-producing a Silver Rank army with their curse shaft already in place.
Annan narrowed his eyes slightly.
He thought of another matter.
The Northern Brotherhood, as the feudal lord of âthe northernmost part of the mapâ, didnât have much money.
So, how did they persuade the Fallen forces of Saltpeter Ranch and Nata County to be loyal to them? Given the nature of these Fallens, theyâd probably have turned on their partners and tried to sell them out to the Grand Duke for a reward.
Unless the Fallen wanted something else from the Northern Brotherhood.
From this point of viewâŠ
âCould it be that a shadow ruler has already appeared in the circles of Fallens?â Annan whispered worriedly.
A Fallen who is able to cross borders and control all Fallen.
The Northern Brotherhood was just a pawn at their disposal â a pawn for the âSatiated Goldâ production.
Their ultimate goal of getting [Satiated Gold] was to break free from the Fallen Path.
Who could possibly have the power to cross borders and remotely control the Fallens from the Noah Kingdom, the underground world, and Austere-Winter?
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