Free Web NovelChapter 228: Chapter 199: The Divine Remains Is About to Give Birth?
Twin Tower City. Underground.
The Zog Dragon Nest’s Twin Tower City branch—the largest unauthorized structure in the entire city.
As the underground construction delved deeper, Zog became certain of one thing: the land’s previous owners had never been rich.
Aside from some earthenware pottery, bricks, and tiles, they hadn’t dug up anything of real value. Not a single item could be considered an artifact.
Not everything old can be called an artifact. Most artifacts were valuable in their own right long before they became historical relics.
A Legendary Weapon from a thousand years ago, passed down to the present, is called a divine ancestral weapon. A back scratcher Zog used a thousand years ago, if it survived to this day, would be called a sturdy, dilapidated back scratcher.
However, it wasn’t as if they’d found nothing of value. There had been a moderately-sized discovery underground in the outskirts.
An oil deposit.
Unfortunately, petroleum wasn’t yet a primary energy source, and their chemical technology wasn’t advanced enough. Otherwise, this single deposit could have covered the cost of all their underground excavation.
The most peculiar thing was that near the oil deposit, they had also discovered a type of filamentous mold...
Aside from serving as the living quarters for his non-human employees, the Underground Dragon Nest also housed certain research projects and items that weren’t exactly suitable for the public eye.
For example, the main server for the Red Middle Network—that piece of Divine Remains.
At this very moment, Zog was staring at it with rapt attention.
As one of the Zog Group’s most important assets, it was not only surrounded by all sorts of top-tier Protective Magic and kept under constant camera surveillance, but was also guarded by elite Beastman Warriors.
Furthermore, a Legion Teleportation Array had been installed so that Zog could arrive on the scene instantly should any anomaly occur.
And just a moment ago, a Beastman Guard had reported that the Divine Remains had flashed several times.
Zog immediately abandoned the employees with whom he’d been discussing how to cram pets into gaming consoles and rushed over to the server.
After staring for a good while and seeing nothing unusual, he asked the Guard, "Are you sure you saw it flash?"
"Positive. We both saw it. Just ten minutes ago, it flashed several times in a row, like a Priest’s flash."
"Like a Priest’s flash," the other Guard repeated.
Unfortunately, limited by their powers of expression, the two Beastmen gestured and waved their arms for ages but couldn’t clearly explain the specifics of what had happened.
Zog had no choice but to wait for the camera footage to export.
To avoid the classic "surveillance failing at the critical moment" scenario, the area storing the Divine Remains was surrounded by two rings of cameras, providing redundant coverage from every angle.
He got the footage and rewound it to ten minutes prior.
On the screen, in a room so still it looked like a photograph, the Divine Remains suddenly erupted with two dazzling bursts of light without any warning.
The Beastman Guards had been right; it looked just like a Priest’s flash.
It was a little too similar, so much so that Zog suspected Priests had learned their Defensive Flash spell from this very thing.
But that raised a question: what did it mean?
The network was still operating normally. People were playing their games as usual, without so much as a network lag spike.
In that case, only one possibility came to Zog’s mind: ’The Red Middle Divine Remains is about to birth a Spirit Body.’
Just like the deer of the Northern Tribe and the bird of the Silver-White City State.
Those were Spirit Bodies born from the faith of an entire tribe or a city of Elves, accumulated over hundreds of years.
By comparison, then, given the Red Middle Network’s user base and the faith it had accumulated in over two years, the birth of a new Spirit Body seemed perfectly reasonable.
It’s just that the omen itself was a bit... underwhelming.
Zog had specifically researched the legends surrounding the birth of those two Spirit Bodies.
The story from the Northern Domain told of a freezing night in the dead of winter, amidst a raging blizzard and a meteor shower. Fresh grass and branches sprouted around the Divine Remains as the Divine Deer descended from the starry sky, each step causing flowers to bloom in mid-air.
The Elves’ version sounded just as grand. The Holy Tree suddenly self-immolated, consumed by a fire that even rain could not extinguish. After its trunk had turned completely to charcoal, the Divine Bird appeared, and the Holy Tree was restored to its full vitality within a single day.
The differences were... well, everything was different.
The similarity was that they all sounded a lot more impressive than just flashing twice.
Although legends are prone to exaggeration, there’s usually a grain of truth to them.
How would they hype up Red Middle’s origin story in the future? ’At the dawn of its existence, it brought light to the gloomy subterranean world?’
Zog felt he had a bit of a knack for being a God Stick.
As he was pondering this, his vision was once again engulfed in light.
The Divine Remains was glowing again.
This time, it flashed more times than it had in the recording.
Zog instinctively reached out a claw, wanting to touch it, but the tip stopped just a few centimeters from the bone.
He hesitated.
The unknown breeds fear.
He was merely using the Divine Remains; he hadn’t created it. Who knew what principles it actually operated on?
’What if it explodes?’
’An evil plot from the Magic Goddess.’
’She’s letting me build the network, only to get rid of me once I’ve served my purpose.’
Zog had no doubt that a goddess capable of sending a Level Eight Warrior just to use a Scroll would pull a stunt like this.
So, he withdrew his claw. Adhering to the principle that exploring new things requires a rigorous approach, he prepared to grab a few "Little White Mice" to test it first.
The moment Zog’s claw retracted, the Divine Remains flashed again.
Out of curiosity, he feigned extending his claw again, and the Divine Remains immediately went dark.
’What’s that supposed to mean? A motion-activated server?’
"Boss, I think it wants you to touch it," said the Beastman Guard at his side. "My pet hyena whimpers when it wants to be petted, and it goes quiet as soon as I pet it."
"You’re treating this thing like a pet?"
Before Zog could finish speaking, a flash of light, far more intense than any before, pulled his consciousness into another space.
Unlike his first contact with the Divine Remains, the impact this time was incredibly strong. His thoughts grew numb and sluggish. His senses remained, but it felt as if a barrier separated him from the world; everything he saw and heard was trapped in a bizarre state, somewhere between clarity and chaos.
At the same time, Zog could feel a massive amount of magical knowledge pouring into his head like a bursting dam. The volume was so immense that he couldn’t distinguish the specific content of the information.
He didn’t know how long this state lasted. In a daze, the torrent of knowledge gradually subsided, replaced by strange, emotionless voices.
"The God of Nature is dead. The God of Nature is dead. The Humans have betrayed..."
"Magic Goddess disintegrated. No signs of life..."
"The Magic Goddess’s divinity has been inherited. Do not acknowledge. Do not acknowledge the betrayer..."
"Preserve knowledge. Hibernate. Preserve knowledge."
"All units, enter hibernation state. Over. I repeat, all units, enter..."
"Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance..."
"Punish the betrayers. Punish..."
The cacophony of chaotic voices, which made the Dragon’s head spin, finally ceased, and Zog jolted awake.
He glanced around nervously. The Beastman Guards were still there, and so was the Divine Remains. It was as if nothing had happened at all.
"Did something just happen?" he asked.
"Er, the bone went WHOOSH, and lit up. Now it’s not lit up anymore," the Beastman replied.
"How much time passed?"
"About as long as the ’WHOOSH’." The Beastman was confused. ’The boss was only hit by the flash for a second or two, why does he look like two years just went by?’
"How about... you touch it and see what happens?" Zog said.
