The Righteous Player(s)

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 don’t 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 “foundation” 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 Rank’s peak.

There was no danger.

It was a sure-win situation.

However, the Northern Brotherhood’s goal seemed to be obtaining something with a purity that was “beyond pure gold”.

Annan simply found it unreasonable.

Those stupid nobles, desperate to cling to and consolidate their power, weren’t the brightest bulbs. They would surely be willing to cross any forbidden line, especially when they were about to kick the bucket if they didn’t act.

It didn’t 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?

“After eliminating all the impossibilities, the only possibility remains…” 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 didn’t seem accurate either because he didn’t care what would happen to Austere-Winter Dukedom. So he was surely not on Annan’s side either.

As a matter of fact, even if those nobles were idiots, the “brains behind them” 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 wasn’t 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 couldn’t openly object.”

The Saltpeter Ranch’s production of the demon’s 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 wasn’t realistic to assassinate Annan using just any random person.

If they had already obtained the “Satiated Gold,” it wouldn’t 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 Transcender’s power was to use curses to transform the soul, while the essence of Fallen’s 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 “gaseous stage” of a Bronze Rank transcender.

One of the hallmarks of Fallen was that their souls were “like a black smoke”, while Gold Rank transcenders’ souls were “bright like a diamond or rainbow”. This implied that the demonized Fallen could hardly harness much elemental power.

It was even more impossible for them to sublimate into deities either — because in the ascendancy ritual, only the soul could take the Divine Transporter to enter the Light Realm.

—All 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 “elemental power” wasn’t the innate ability of this world. It flooded the world after Father Flint ignited the Sage’s Stone.

The Sage’s Stone was the World’s Blood in the “immaterial world”, and its status was equivalent to the solidified curse energy.

In other words, Father Flint most likely stole the real Sage’s Stone from the immaterial world.

Before that, the soul that reached the [Dyed] rank was only “noble”.

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 “beast way” that used curses to transform the body — 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.

“The Enigma of Fate and Dice: A Discourse” mentioned that “going up is a leap while going down is one step at a time”. This subtly highlighted the difference between “the Ascension Path” and “the Fallen Path”.

That was why the ascendancy ritual was called the “ascendancy ritual”.

It represented the unique “difference” 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 “Ascension Path” to “Transcendence Path” to better safeguard this secret.

No matter how Father Flint got the Sage’s 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 Path’s “Dyed” Rank.

Annan immediately realized that the upright deities hoped to increase the number of “deities” through this “new patch”.

He was all too familiar with this approach… Using “buffs” and “nerfs” to influence the players’ behavior was a basic skill for game designers.

Was it reasonable? No…

Introducing the “elemental power” concept made the “strong, pure soul” 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 hadn’t possessed the secret of creation. Of course, the Saint was at the Truth Rank.

However, it was evident that the Northern Brotherhood didn’t have multiple Gold Rank transcenders.

Because in the entire Austere-Winter Dukedom, there were no wild Gold Rank transcenders at all — Winter’s 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 Winter’s 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 “Beauty of Imbalance”, Vasika, who could resist the Gold Rank under special circumstances, the only Gold Rank in Austere-Winter’s was Old Grandmother’s pope, and the Melvin family’s “the Divine” of the World”. The latter two were not affiliated with the Austere-Winter family.

This was the weakest period of the Austere-Winter Dukedom — if the ancestor summoner ritual wasn’t counted.

The only reason the Northern Brotherhood didn’t 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 “hold the emperor hostage to command the subordinates”.

Therefore, they had not completed the “Satiated Gold” 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 “the northernmost part of the map”, didn’t 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, they’d 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 view…

“Could it be that a shadow ruler has already appeared in the circles of Fallens?” 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 — a pawn for the “Satiated Gold” 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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