Free Web NovelChapter 1430: 1430 Adjudicator Game: Game Invasion 35
"Stop exposing everything. Stop analyzing everything."
The boomerang had come back and hit Rita squarely in the face.
She had nothing to say in response.
Even though Ash Inspector was playing dumb, Rita could already guess that it was probably related to the contract.
Only the contract being severed for a third time could have made B80 that angry.
The strange part was that she could still sense the contract’s existence.
Which meant she still didn’t fully understand what this "Unique Key" actually was.
Perhaps some kind of connection had been cut, creating the effect of a broken contract without truly destroying it.
Rita did not press for answers.
Whatever was coming would come eventually.
At the very least, the worst case scenario had not happened.
Players and NPCs were not absolute enemies.
Even if B80 really came charging over, she and B80 would not need to point weapons at each other...
Probably.
For now, she focused on the game before her.
Every prison contained exceptionally powerful Prisoners.
Some were naturally gifted.
Others had simply survived inside the prison system for so long that they had become terrifyingly strong.
These elite Prisoners usually required leader level players to deal with.
Once recruited, however, they became invaluable invasion forces.
At the same time, there was an endless stream of newcomers.
Every six hours, another batch of fresh Prisoners arrived.
From a military perspective, they were almost unnecessary.
Sending them directly into battle would only turn them into cannon fodder.
After sorting them by race, Rita arranged these newcomers throughout the already liberated prisons.
She also introduced a new rule.
With a Prisoner’s consent, players could exchange Prisoners under their command by paying soul fire from their wages.
The purpose was simple.
There were too many races.
Some beings might prefer fighting alongside their own kind.
Yet to Rita’s surprise, Prisoner exchanges happened very rarely.
In the end, she could only attribute it to the fact that every race excelled at different things.
Divine Gifts varied.
Talents varied.
Combat styles varied.
Compared to those differences, race itself seemed far less important.
Meanwhile, Rita had already spent soul fire establishing a resurrection point in the Wasteland.
Players who paid the required soul fire could revive directly.
Like the lead designer of a massive game, she constantly searched for more soul fire.
She gathered resources.
Spent resources.
Created rules that benefited players.
Captured more prisons.
Obtained more soul fire.
Then used that soul fire to keep the system running.
The cycle continued.
After becoming the architect behind everything, she finally understood what "experience" truly was.
If a living being was equivalent to soul fire, then experience represented the scattered energy spread throughout this entire star system.
That energy could serve as fuel for soul fire.
And when a living being died, its soul fire dispersed and returned to the system as fresh energy.
As time passed, Rita found herself with less and less work to do.
Ironically, she had more and more time to think.
She walked between prisons.
She stood above the Exile Zone.
She looked down upon the endless sea of cages stretching beyond the horizon.
Ash Inspector: [What are you thinking about?]
StarseaPrisoner: "I’m wondering whether the people of the future will hate us."
Throughout their journey, she and the beings of the Twelfth Epoch had despised both the Invasion Sequence and the existence of Order Clock.
Yet now that they had arrived in the past, they were actively pushing history toward the very future they once hated.
Granted, countless mysteries still remained.
Were the newborn beings of every Epoch simply fresh Prisoners sent by the higher-dimensional world?
Why were divine domains exempt from destruction?
Was world activation tied to population thresholds?
Where had Order Clock come from?
If Starsea was originally composed of prisons, where had Quiet Mountain’s territory originated?
Why were there so many timelines?
And who exactly created the system governing every world?
But compared to all of that, Rita cared more about the future.
The answers to those mysteries would eventually reveal themselves as the game progressed.
The future was different.
What happened after they finished writing history?
Would they escape from the Third Epoch?
If so, the existence of the Exile Zone would be completely exposed to the higher-dimensional civilization.
How could this place continue functioning as a prison afterward?
The only logical answer was to return to the Twelfth Epoch.
To launch their final assault from the end of the story itself.
Yet there was one problem.
Rita had never sensed the Watcher’s Eye anywhere in the Twelfth Epoch.
There was no way the Watcher’s Eye had simply disappeared.
Otherwise, the Exile Zone could not have survived this long.
Unless...
The Watcher’s Eye had been sealed inside Order Clock.
The possibility sent a chill through her.
Cold sweat broke across her back.
But the feeling faded almost immediately.
So what?
She had already come this far.
Even if the Watcher’s Eye really was trapped inside Order Clock, what difference did it make?
Once history was complete, they would have to return to the Twelfth Epoch and face everything anyway.
A brand new platinum-white page materialized before her. frёewebηovel.cѳm
Petals gathered into an easel.
Lightning formed a throne behind her.
Rita took out her brushes and paints.
Ash Inspector: [Are you going to paint this place?]
StarseaPrisoner: "Yes."
"A proper ending."
World Sigh already possessed an illustration of the Twelfth Epoch before the prologue.
Why shouldn’t the Exile Zone of the Third Epoch become the illustration after the epilogue?
She had no intention of painting a scene where every prison was unlocked.
This moment was perfect.
Across the vast Starsea floated countless six-sided cubes.
Several hundred prison cubes nearest to Rita had already been liberated.
Farther away, countless more remained sealed.
The unlocked cubes had burst apart into individual sections.
They resembled colossal starships disassembling in deep space.
Each cell floated independently, yet none drifted too far from the others.
At the center of every liberated prison glowed a gentle light.
Like moonlight itself.
The light seemed to exert a subtle gravitational pull that prevented the cells from wandering too far.
Between the scattered prisons stretched bridges woven from platinum-white pages.
Their soft radiance flowed through the darkness like rivers of stars.
Far beyond them floated the untouched cubes.
Cold.
Orderly.
Perfectly mechanical.
Every six hours they rotated with clockwork precision.
Top to bottom.
Left to right.
Though transparent, they possessed a strange industrial beauty.
Clean lines outlined prison after prison against the endless night.
Without warning, Rita spoke aloud.
"Would you like me to paint you too?"
The nearest prison was the Wasteland.
The place where everything had begun.
Ash Inspector: [Did you paint B80?]
Rita: "..."
"Yes." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Ash Inspector: [Then I must trouble you to include me as well.]
Ash Inspector: [Should I pose for the portrait?]
Ash Inspector: [Do you still remember what I look like?]
A silver miniature cube suddenly appeared beside Rita.
Without warning, it melted.
Expanded.
Transformed.
Until it became a portrait of Ash Inspector.
Ash Inspector stood holding a massive black scythe taller than its own body.
The blade rested diagonally against the ground.
Its helmeted head tilted upward at a perfect forty-five degree angle.
Crimson light leaked from every joint in its black iron armor.
The glow drifted behind it like a torn cloak made of living embers.
The tattered crimson mantle fluttered gently despite the absence of any wind.
...
It was an animated image.
