Abyssal Wanderer.

Briareus did not immediately return to Mount Olympus after leaving the body of the master of ceremonies.

His consciousness sank into the abyss of the dark web, descending downwards—of course, this is from a mortal's perspective; based on His current perception, it should be closer to ascending.

He ascended upwards, and after crossing the River Styx, he easily broke through the shackles of the Moon Goddess's realm. Then, following guidance, he passed through the Hermesian realm, calming his mind and avoiding getting lost in the Venusian realm...

He continued to rise until he finally reached his destination.

This is the far east, on a mysterious island surrounded by the Ocean River.

Briarus's massive body took only one step to reach the island, and at the same time, the surrounding information began to recombine and transform by combining with his own will and that of the island's master.

In the center of the island, the palace of the sun god stands majestically, its pillars towering high. It gleams with shimmering gold, vying with the flaming bronze; white ivory adorns the eaves of the roof, and the double silver doors reflect a sparkling light. The carvings here are exquisite, far surpassing any earthly material (Note*).

Because He had not given prior notice of His arrival, the attendants outside the palace were terrified by His immense size. They dropped their water bottles and fruit baskets and screamed as they fled back into the depths of the temple.

"Although I know you are an efficient person... but friend, it's better to give a heads-up beforehand if you're coming in person like this."

A gentle voice came from inside the palace.

Upon hearing this, Briareus spread out His hands—dozens at a time—to express His apology, and then said:
"That's why I'm standing outside the temple waiting for you to invite me in."

No sooner had He finished speaking than the silver doors of the Temple of the Sun God burst open. In the next instant, Briareus appeared inside the palace hall.

A young man with golden hair, dressed in a purple robe, sat on a throne adorned with emeralds.

"This is a sensitive time. If it's for private matters, you shouldn't be making such a big fuss about coming here."

The blond young man said with a hint of helplessness.

Briareus neither agreed nor disagreed with this, and continued to speak to himself:
Should I address you by your first name, or...?

The young man raised his hand to interrupt him, and then said:
"Since it is now my turn to sit on Apollo's throne, then I shall be Apollo for this moment."

Briarius nodded, then said:
“I understand that visiting the Apollo framework at this time would send some destabilizing signals to the outside world. But that is not my intention. In fact, I came here just to see you in person and learn some things.”

Apollo sighed and began to complain:

"Bacchus is about to break through the inflection point and ascend, and no one can say for sure whether this will trigger a second 'Great Shock.' Even if He can achieve a stable ascension without damaging the underlying reality, the rise of the Dionysian framework without His suppression will inevitably cause huge turmoil... This ascension will not be as uneventful as the Hades framework's. As far as I know, Venus, Juno, Mars, and Minerva are all gearing up to compete for the power of Dionysus."

"Especially Venus, if she were to truly gain power, even Zeus, who wields the 'Great Thunder,' would likely..."

At first, He complained that He shouldn't have come, saying it would send a bad signal to the outside world; but then He started describing the wolfish ambitions of other companies, implying an intention to form alliances and cooperate.

Briareus, finding it somewhat amusing, interrupted Him:

"Son of Leto, rest assured. Below the highest heavens, no being dares to challenge the authority of the Great Thunder, even if they truly possess the power of Dionysus... As I said before, I did not come for such a thing."

Apollo immediately asked:
"Was that related to Neptune's disruption of the base server deployment in Central Asia? Or was it due to Prometheus's recent actions on the Narcissus Plain?"

Briarius shook his head, then said:
"I came here to understand the source of the will you possess, the super AI Nyx, which was uploaded based on John Otto, a technician at Artificial Intelligence General."

Upon hearing this, Apollo immediately became alert.

"In accordance with Article 3, Section 47 of the Olympiad, we can use the echoes of wills that have been determined to be non-threatening under the supervision of the Anthropocentric Ethics Review Committee... and we also have the right not to disclose the specific technical details."

He immediately said, “The Dionysus virus you spread has triggered a crisis alert for Type II humans in the Nord resettlement area.”

Briarius said directly.

"That's a problem caused by the Dionysian structure rising, and we have installed safety devices in the Dionysian virus—originally, if those infected were left unattended, they would find a way to kill themselves, completely harmless... We also didn't expect the Dionysian phenomenon to appear in Nord."

At this point, Apollo added:

"Furthermore, the Nord settlement is no longer protected by the Olympian order, so conducting experiments of this magnitude there is not illegal."

Briarous directly provided the testimony of the "pharmacist".

"Was simultaneously spreading the Apollo virus to mass-produce 'Superman' also part of the experiment? I think that probably violates the most basic terms, right?"

Seeing that Apollo remained silent, Briareus continued:
“I understand what you mean. You're just waiting for the ‘Great Thunder’ to strike and eliminate the threat. Until then, you can collect experimental data that you can't normally collect, but conducting experiments on a creation at the level of a legacy is going too far... Are you trying to create a controllable ‘superman’?”

Seeing that the evidence was irrefutable, Apollo hesitated for a moment, then said:
"There is a paradox between Superman and controllability. We just want to create a controllable zombie adjuster."

Briareus neither confirmed nor denied this, then said:
"But you guys created a real 'Superman' before, didn't you?"

As He spoke, He projected an image of Jim Ritter.

"He looks just like him... No wonder this experiment was successful."

Looking at Jim's image, Briarius nodded and murmured.

"He was the only successful product that year...and that's why we chose to abandon that experimental project."

Apollo said this as he looked at Jim's image.

"why?"

"Briaros asked."

"Because the experimental results were so good, so good that normal humans were like underdeveloped monkeys... In the research zombie center, he was even able to reverse engineer Deep 5 technology, and I believe that is not his limit."

"After having a brain-computer interface installed, he was able to increase his work efficiency by hundreds of times—this is not a metaphor; he truly can increase his efficiency by a hundred times by calling upon AI to work in parallel. Not only can he focus on advancing hundreds of projects simultaneously, but he can also make precise predictions about the future, just like the Cassandra Path Adjuster."

"Furthermore, we are completely unable to understand any of his thoughts, nor can we determine his behavior patterns... In fact, he has never had any fixed behavior patterns. He's like a chameleon, changing his behavioral strategies according to his surroundings. The most terrifying thing is..."

Apollo paused here, and then said:
Even so, he still maintains a perfect mental index.

Many adjusters of different paths are no less capable than "superhumans" in terms of the hardware for operating "intelligence," but often their intelligence exhibits a strong sense of inhumanity. In order to suppress that alien inhumanity, these adjusters often need to abandon or ignore certain senses or ways of thinking.

"That sounds pretty good... If you had continued your research along this path back then, maybe Apollo Biotechnology's headquarters would have received a major thunderbolt."

Briarius said, half-jokingly and half-seriously.

"So I destroyed him."

To this, Apollo replied very seriously:
"By using the path left by the original creator, the other board members' idea of ​​transforming all of humanity into 'superhumans' was completely severed." (End of Chapter)