Life Dungeon Game

He Ao knew what Li Cheng was worried about, so he didn't try to persuade him. In this situation, the more anxious he seemed, the more likely he would be seen as having ulterior motives.

People can't be persuaded by others, they can only be persuaded by themselves.

He Ao turned his head and looked at the snow-capped mountains not far away outside the window.

This appears to be an undeveloped tourist area, located in a primeval forest.

Li Chengye turned his head to look at the scenery outside the window. The quiet and beautiful scenery was reflected in his pupils, as if gently plucking the strings of a harp that soothes emotions.

He seemed to understand why 'Hao Yi' had brought him here.

Countless pieces of information about 'Hao Yi' flashed through his mind.

What followed could be described as a rational judgment, or it could be described as a gamble: betting that this 'mysterious' visitor from the ruins was indeed as benevolent as he had previously appeared.

For a world heading towards an unpredictable future, sometimes a gamble is necessary.

Li Cheng turned around and looked at He Ao, "I can grant your request, but I need to prepare a little."

"Can,"

He Ao nodded slightly.

His hand rested lightly on the hilt of the sword, and the shadowy rapier slowly merged into the tabletop, then fell through the tabletop and disappeared beneath the floor of the Verola.

The pitch-black shadows that filled the entire carriage began to slowly dissipate, and He Ao said calmly, "However, I don't have much time to wait."

"It will take about a day, and at the latest, it should be done by around 3 p.m. tomorrow."

Li Cheng said slowly.

“Okay,” He Ao nodded. “Tomorrow morning, I will leave the time and address for our meeting in a prominent place in Ruodan. Just bring your things. If the ‘forging’ fails in the end, I will also tell you the relevant knowledge.”

"Can I know what specific knowledge it is?"

Li Cheng asked in a low voice.

"Knowledge sufficient to match this 'operation'."

He Ao said slowly.

Li Cheng opened his mouth, hoping to deduce some information from He Ao's introduction.

After thinking for a moment, he had no choice but to ask instead,

"You once mentioned 'gods' on the Verola, beings of a higher rank than angels. This 'anomaly' in Ellen City, including the rapier you just showed me, was it the work of 'god'? What exactly is a god? Why did he create this 'anomaly'?"

"In order to come into this world,"

He Ao looked at Li Cheng and answered the last question first, "The god who orchestrated this event is called the Mysterious Shadow."

"Of course, you'd better not mention this name to anyone below Rank B. Their souls are too weak and easily corrupted by the power of the gods. Knowing a god's name means that the god's gaze might fall upon you."

Those who are watched over by the gods are easily made his servants.

"This time, the person in charge of Moonlight in Allen, the explorer Rhodes, was corrupted by the Shadow of Mystery for some unknown reason. In turn, he corrupted the puppeteer in charge of the World Tree, and corrupted most of the members of Moonlight and the World Tree, turning them into servants of the Shadow of Mystery."

"'Gods' spread their doctrines and corruption. They try to make more people know about them, believe in them, and follow their doctrines, which often contain elements of extremism and madness."

"The gods don't care about the lives of humans. Sacrificial arrays built with lives often please most gods and make them bestow blessings."

"Therefore, the followers of these gods often use extreme methods to try to sacrifice a large number of lives to please their gods in order to obtain their gods' 'gifts'."

"This time, Ellen's incident,"

Li Cheng paused slightly, "So it was caused by Rhodes, corrupted by the gods, trying to sacrifice lives to gain blessings? In that case, those unconscious people were originally 'sacrificial offerings'? They were actually supposed to die?"

This actually aligns with his previous speculation, except that what he previously speculated was something stronger than angels from the ruins, rather than 'gods', that was trying to kill the unconscious people.

"Strictly speaking, you can understand it this way,"

He Ao nodded, reached out, and lit the lantern on the table with his lighter. The next second, the entire Verola entered the 'tunnel,' and the surrounding environment was plunged into darkness once again.

"In fact, this is a rather special type of sacrificial ritual, namely the ritual of the descent of the evil god's offspring. Rhodes is trying to bring the offspring of the mysterious shadow into this world to spread the 'gospel' for the mysterious shadow, spread more faith, and create more sacrifices."

"This deity called 'Mysterious Shadow' comes from the ruins?"

Li Cheng glanced at the dark environment around him, which seemed to conceal some kind of restlessness. The flickering light shone on his face, and he asked slowly, "Are there such powerful beings in the ruins?"

"To be precise, it may not have come from the ruins; the ruins are nothing special."

He Ao shook his head and glanced at the sky. "In fact, compared to those gods, the world we live in now, which is free from any pollution and divine 'preaching,' is the special one."

Ruins and dungeons share certain similarities; their supernatural powers and creatures are almost identical, and even the supernatural powers that gradually appear in the main world are the same.

Every time He Ao communicated with his friends, he could clearly feel that their strength seemed to come from being projected across a long period of time and space.

They are not actually in the copy world or in the ruins.

Perhaps madness and the extraordinary are the essence of this universe, and peaceful worlds like the main world are the exception.

Of course, it's also possible that the exact opposite is true, with the main world being the majority and dungeons and ruins being the minority.

"Because our world originally didn't have these gods; it was like an undeveloped piece of land. Therefore, those so-called 'gods' have the power to descend."

The desire to 'preach' in this world?

Li Cheng concluded.

"You can think so."

He Ao nodded.

“But if these gods truly possess power beyond comprehension,” Kurishi asked slowly, “why don’t they descend upon this world themselves?”

"Two reasons,"

He Ao held up two fingers. "First, it takes a lot of energy for gods to descend on their own. If there aren't enough offerings, they would hardly choose to do such a losing business."

In the knowledge of the dungeon world, this is the reason why most gods are unwilling to descend in person. Of course, if the relationship is good enough, gods can also descend at their own expense. For example, good friends support He Ao.

"second,"

He Ao continued, "I suspect that, for some reason, these gods do not have the coordinates of this world, so they can only pollute the extraordinary beings in this world through ruins, and then use these extraordinary beings to perform sacrifices within the world to summon their power."

This reason was deduced by Heo from the thousands of years of peace in the main world.

Even if a deity is unwilling to descend at their own expense, they can still send some power across space.

The fact that there are so many sects of gods in the dungeon world does not necessarily mean that so many gods have actually descended into the dungeon world. The Holy Scripture of the Goddess of Life records that the Goddess of Life "converted" the first believers in "chaos" as well as a large number of "oracles" with unclear meanings that seemed like crazy ramblings.

It should be feasible to create a group of believers using a power similar to an 'oracle'.

This also allows the gods to avoid personally engaging in missionary work.

However, the arrival of such divine power may also have limitations.

Deities can send 'divine pronouncements' to their faithful followers, but not to ordinary believers or other common people, because faithful believers have firm faith, are more easily located by the deities, and are more likely to receive messages from the deities.

The ritual array for communicating with the gods also requires a specific host to act as the 'coordinate' for communicating with the gods.

As someone with considerable experience in communicating with deities, He Ao knew very well that one of the important functions of the communication array was to provide a living coordinate for the deities.

This coordinate does not provide a permanent address. Once the magic circle ends or the host dies, this coordinate will disappear, and the power descended by the gods will lose its support.

However, regardless of the circumstances, these coordinates will provide the gods with an accurate location for the arrival of their power.

Without such a precise location, the gods might not be able to accurately project their power.

He Ao suspected that there was no such 'precise location' in the main world.

Gods can send their power at their own expense, but they need the exact location of the world to which the power is sent.

He Ao speculated that every world might have a 'world coordinate'.

This world coordinate system should not be the temporary or ritual coordinate system that He Ao mentioned before, but a permanent coordinate system.

This coordinate is most likely a range coordinate, unlike the precise ritual coordinates. It cannot be used for the main body, sub-body, or projection descent; it can only project some power.

Otherwise, He Ao's friends could have easily taken matters into their own hands.

He descends without needing to use Ho's specific rituals to locate him.

However, the initial corruption of the gods did not require detailed coordinates. They only needed to project their power and then randomly corrupt people, turning them into believers.

In this scenario, even in the main world without believers, the gods can use the power of the world coordinates to develop followers and then transform the main world into a dungeon world filled with various evil god cults.

However, in reality, these evil god sects do not exist in the main world. Even the corruption of the Mysterious Shadows began with the extraordinary individuals who entered the ruins, using the ruins to spread the corruption.

Therefore, He Ao speculated that the world coordinates of the main world may not have been exposed yet, and those evil gods did not know how to directly project their power into this world, so they could only rely on believers who were corrupted in the ruins to carry out sacrifices and proselytizing.

One function of the mysterious shadow descending upon the child body might be to confirm the specific coordinates of this world.

Of course, these are all He Ao's guesses, one of the logical structures he has constructed to best explain the current situation, and He Ao does not know whether these guesses are correct.

So when he was narrating, he added the words "I suspect".

After listening to his explanation, Li Cheng fell into a brief silence.

Ho's explanation revealed some deeper principles governing the workings of the gods, and he also understood the possible 'admonition' implied in Ho's words:

Since the world coordinates of the main world have not been exposed, the only possible source of the problem is the superhumans who returned from the ruins. Beneath their seemingly unchanged appearance, they may have been corrupted by some evil god.

“You mentioned that the mysterious shadow is an ‘evil god’,” Li Cheng continued, “If there are evil gods, are there ‘good gods’?”

"No,"

He Ao shook his head. "At least I have never come into contact with a god who can be called a 'true god'."

Li Cheng raised his head and looked at He Ao.

This statement contains a wealth of information. The mysterious shadow is not the only deity the other party has encountered; they have encountered more than one! Moreover, judging from the tone, the number of these deities may not be a small number.

Suppressing his curiosity about Hao Yi's identity, Li Cheng prepared to ask for more details.

beep-

Just then, a series of piercing whistles suddenly sounded, followed by a dim light slowly shining into the carriage.

He Ao bent down, blew out the lantern, and looked at Li Cheng.

"Alright, Mr. Kurisu, that concludes our discussion of 'prepaid'."

"If you can't transport those extraordinary materials in a short time, you can also make a list of the materials, including the specific information of the materials and the pick-up location. Place it on the table in this restaurant. I will come to pick up the list around 14:30 pm."

He smiled and said, "I look forward to our next meeting."

The carriage doors suddenly opened.