Death… And Me

Chapter 4412: One Look

The regions contacted one another in a hurry, and before long, the same reports began arriving from every direction. Regardless of which region was asked, the answers were nearly identical. Everyone had suddenly fallen asleep, almost no casualties had resulted from the strange phenomenon, and no one had the slightest idea why it had happened.

That alone was enough to dispel Tobao’s suspicions that the incident might somehow have been connected to his meeting with the twins’ group. If the phenomenon had been limited to Besgol, he would have continued investigating that possibility. However, dozens upon dozens of regions had experienced the exact same event at the exact same time. No matter how he analyzed it, there was simply no plausible way Rean and the others could have triggered something that affected so many distant regions simultaneously.

Naturally, no one realized that every region’s Sacred Relic had been involved. As far as the cultivators were concerned, their Sacred Relics had functioned exactly as they always did. The gray energy that had briefly erupted from every Relic before everyone fell asleep had been completely erased from everyone’s memories. No records remained, no witnesses remembered it, and no array captured the event. It was as though that crucial moment had never existed in the first place.

That only deepened the mystery.

Countless investigations would follow over the next several months. Every major organization searched for clues, trying to discover what had caused such an unprecedented phenomenon. Some believed it had been a natural disaster unique to the Celestial Plane. Others suspected an unknown Godly Creature. Quite a few experts pointed toward the dead cultivators that had been turned into puppets, theorizing that they might somehow have been involved. Yet every investigation eventually reached the same conclusion.

There simply wasn’t enough evidence.

---

One week later, after the initial chaos had calmed down, the Godly Subjugation Guild assembled ten Elite Exploration Groups once more.

This time, their destination was the Konvey Ruins.

Or, more specifically, an area roughly five to six hundred kilometers south of them, where Harksha’s group had reported discovering countless runes that could strengthen the Sacred Relic.

As everyone already knew, exploration groups normally avoided having more than ten members. Larger gatherings naturally attracted far greater numbers of Godly Creatures, making large expeditions far more dangerous than smaller ones. However, this situation was different. The potential reward was simply too valuable to ignore.

Because of that, Tobao remained behind to oversee the Besgol Region while Arcis personally led the expedition.

With a Law God accompanying them, the danger posed by larger numbers became far more manageable. Even if numerous Godly Creatures were drawn toward the expedition, Arcis alone possessed enough strength to suppress almost any threat before it endangered the exploration teams.

Only a Godly Horror would truly present a challenge.

Fortunately, following the massive defensive war not long ago, the number of Godly Horrors remaining near Besgol had decreased dramatically. The surrounding territories had become considerably safer than before, making this the perfect opportunity to launch such a large-scale operation.

---

"So this is the place..." Arcis muttered as he gazed toward the ancient ruins.

Several thick columns of smoke continued rising into the sky from different parts of the enormous complex.

Harksha, Senkiyu, Cantra, Rico’The, and the rest of her group immediately frowned.

According to their memories...

There hadn’t been any smoke when they left.

Something had clearly happened after their departure.

Arcis heard their observations but merely nodded. "We’ll worry about that later. Right now, our priority is recovering as many Sacred Relic-usable runes as possible."

He turned toward the assembled exploration groups. "Spread out evenly. Each Elite Exploration Group will investigate a different section of the ruins. I’ll remain near the central area so I can reinforce whichever team encounters trouble first."

Nobody objected.

Within moments, the ten Elite Exploration Groups split apart, each disappearing toward a different section of the massive ruins.

Harksha’s group immediately chose the underground facility containing the floating silver boxes.

Although none of them remembered the existence of Nomo anymore, they still clearly remembered finding enormous quantities of valuable resources inside those mysterious Spatial Silver Boxes. If any place still held treasures worth collecting, it would almost certainly be there.

Unfortunately...

As soon as they approached the entrance, everyone’s expressions changed.

The underground facility was one of the main sources of the smoke rising into the sky. The entrance itself remained open, but everything around it was scorched black.

Descending into the underground complex, they quickly discovered the reason.

Guardian Cores...

Worker Cores...

Every single one lay scattered across the corridors.

Some had been split apart entirely.

Others remained mostly intact externally, yet every internal rune had been completely destroyed. Their energy cores had long since gone dark, leaving nothing but lifeless metallic shells behind.

Not a single one remained operational.

The hope of studying those mysterious automatons to better understand the Sacred Relic vanished almost immediately.

The deeper they ventured, the worse the destruction became.

Entire sections of the facility had clearly suffered catastrophic internal failures. Numerous ancient devices had melted beyond recognition, while many rooms still emitted faint trails of smoke from ruined machinery that had only recently stopped functioning.

Finally, they reached the storage chamber.

The silver boxes were still there.

At first glance, everyone relaxed.

Then they noticed the truth.

"No..." Harksha slowly walked closer. "The Spatial Storages..."

The boxes themselves had survived. Almost every single one remained physically intact.

However, every Spatial Storage inside had disappeared completely, leaving only empty boxes behind. Judging from the scorched surroundings, the internal systems connected to them had overloaded during whatever self-destructive process had taken place.

If countless years’ worth of collected resources had truly been stored inside those Spatial Storages... Then they were gone forever.

For the following three days, all ten Elite Exploration Groups thoroughly explored every accessible corner of the Konvey Ruins.

Guardian and Worker Cores were collected in the thousands for study. Every single one of them was ’dead’ inside.

Just as Rean, Roan, Kentucky, and Celis had expected, every trace related to Godly Pressure manipulation and Godly Energy production had completely vanished.

The Nexus Core itself was nowhere to be found.

The massive tower still stood, though much of it had been damaged internally. The control chambers had been rendered unusable, while countless ancient devices had either exploded or burned out beyond repair.

Whatever Duze had ordered before leaving...

It had been carried out flawlessly.

Likewise, the enormous stockpiles of resources accumulated throughout countless millennia had almost entirely disappeared. Since nearly everything had been stored inside the flying Spatial Silver Boxes, destroying those Spatial Storages had effectively erased all their contents in one stroke.

Still...

There were a few unexpected exceptions.

The sixty-two silver boxes that Rean and Fohui had previously modified so they could no longer fly had somehow survived almost untouched.

Their Spatial Storages remained fully functional.

Those were the very same boxes Rean had used earlier to prevent the tower entrance from sealing shut during their first visit.

Apparently, because they had been disconnected from the original system, they had escaped whatever command destroyed the rest.

When the exploration concluded, Harksha personally carried those sixty-two silver boxes to Arcis.

"Senior Arcis." She respectfully handed them over. "These are the only Spatial Silver Boxes we found whose Spatial Storages are still intact. I don’t know about the other exploration groups, but this was all we managed to recover."

Arcis accepted them before letting out a sigh. "I’ve already received reports from the other groups. The situation is identical everywhere. Every underground facility they located suffered the same fate. Guardian Cores, Worker Cores, ancient devices, storage facilities... everything important has either been destroyed or rendered completely inoperable."

After a brief pause, he looked directly at Harksha. "Are you absolutely certain none of you knows what happened here?"

Harksha immediately shook her head. "We truly don’t, Senior."

Senkiyu, Cantra, Rico’The, and the others all gave similar answers.

"When we left," Harksha continued, "everything was still functioning normally."

According to her memories, their group had infiltrated the ruins by carefully avoiding the Guardian Cores instead of relying on Rean’s Godly Pressure-disguised airplane.

That version of events fit perfectly with what everyone else remembered.

Rean rubbed his chin thoughtfully before speaking. "There is one possibility."

Everyone looked toward him.

"If the ancient system somehow detected that we escaped, maybe it activated an emergency self-destruction protocol."

He gestured toward the devastated facilities around them. "It would explain why everything important was destroyed while the buildings themselves were mostly left standing."

The others exchanged thoughtful glances.

Considering everything they had seen...

That explanation sounded perfectly reasonable.

"Perhaps..." Harksha admitted.

Arcis slowly nodded. "It certainly matches the evidence."

He spread several ancient runes across one of his wings, examining them with satisfaction. "Regardless of what happened, our primary objective has been accomplished."

He smiled faintly. "It is unfortunate that so many ancient resources were lost alongside those Spatial Storages. Even so, the amount of Sacred Relic-usable runes remaining throughout these ruins is astonishing. This expedition has already exceeded our expectations."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Rean had quietly inspected many of the recovered runes himself during the exploration.

Just as expected...

Every rune related to Godly Pressure manipulation had been destroyed beyond recovery.

Everything else, however, remained perfectly usable.

Those runes would undoubtedly maintain the Besgol Region’s Sacred Relic for a long time.

"Senior Arcis," Rean said, pointing toward the sixty-two remaining Spatial Silver Boxes, "since those are the only ones left with intact Spatial Storages, shouldn’t we finally see what’s inside them? We haven’t opened a single one yet."

Arcis’s eyes lit up.

He still remembered Harksha’s earlier report describing the enormous quantities of Thousand-Vein Root Hydra materials recovered from one such box.

And if those boxes contained resources gathered from countless other Godly Creatures over thousands of years...

Their value could very well surpass everything they had recovered so far.

He smiled. "I was thinking the exact same thing. Let’s have a look."