— — — — — —
At the outskirts of Arcadia City, there was a small clearing deep within the forest.
Kalki appeared there without warning. His legs gave out, and he dropped to one knee.
He sucked in air greedily, gasping for a long while before he finally managed to speak.
"That impact just now…"
When he recalled the light of destruction that had nearly drowned the entire fabricated world, a shiver ran through him.
"What in the world was that?"
A sigh sounded inside his mind, "I still underestimated that kid…"
Hearing the voice, Kalki turned around and slumped down onto the grass. His face was pale as he asked with lingering fear, "Mr. Mystery, that light just now… was it caused by Ryo Yagami clashing with Asura?"
The confrontation between Ryo and Ares had directly affected dozens of fabricated worlds and indirectly impacted nearly twenty thousand more. Almost the entire collection of fabricated-world game fields had felt the shock.
That was why everyone had seen the brilliance released by the Cosmos.
Kalki, unfortunately, had been positioned extremely close to the battlefield. Even though there had been a few seconds of buffering, his game field still ended up turning into a chaotic zone with incomplete boundaries, just like the heart of the war itself.
If not for Kalki's own special nature, he would not have escaped at all.
As for the other participants, they were unlikely to be so lucky.
Fortunately, the Little Garden's central core authority maintained contestant-protection mechanisms for standard Gift Games. Staying alive was not too difficult.
So while Kalki felt some sympathy for everyone else's bad luck, what truly puzzled him was something else.
How had Ryo ended up fighting Asura to such an extent?
According to the intelligence he had seen, the Queen of the Asura race was not especially bloodthirsty. It made no sense for things to escalate this far.
And with Ryo's personality, large-scale conflict should not have been his first choice either.
"…It wasn't Asura," Mr. Mystery said after a brief silence. "It should have been that brat Ares."
"Ares? The god of war, Ares?" Cold sweat instantly broke out on Kalki's forehead.
Just now, Ryo had been fighting one of the Twelve Olympians?
They had actually crossed hands, and it had turned into that kind of scene?
"Heh!" Mr. Mystery snorted. "Ares barely qualifies to be a god of war."
He corrected Kalki offhand, then smoothly shifted the topic. "If Ryo can match or even suppress Ares, then your situation just got a lot more troublesome."
"What do you mean?" Kalki asked blankly.
Then it hit him. His eyes widened in shock.
"Wait, are you saying Ryo defeated Ares? That's impossible!"
"Why impossible?" Mr. Mystery laughed with a hint of mockery. "Ares wasn't fighting to the death. This time he probably only brought a few authority-class divine artifacts, keeping his combat power at the upper limit of the lower layer. Losing to someone at the same level isn't strange at all."
"So it was just an avatar?"
Hearing that, Kalki finally relaxed a little. If it was only an avatar, then Ryo winning made sense.
"No," Mr. Mystery said calmly. "It should have been Ares' true body. Just one without his full set of artifacts. At the very least, he would have brought the authorities of War and Battle. That's around eighty percent of his peak strength. And yet it still ended like this."
"..."
"How did he grow this fast…" Kalki muttered to himself.
Mr. Mystery sounded puzzled as well. "I have a rough idea, but I'm not confident. But if it really was him, Athena should have moved against him immediately. Strange."
Kalki's eyes flickered, his expression changing slightly. "The troublemaker? How would Ryo dare? Isn't he a secret member of Thousand Eyes?"
"Oh?" Mr. Mystery sounded surprised. "He's loyal to Thousand Eyes? That's the first I've heard of it."
Then he chuckled. "In that case, I'm about thirty percent sure it really was him."
"Why?" Kalki frowned, utterly confused.
If Ryo truly served Thousand Eyes and was also the troublemaker, wouldn't that mean Thousand Eyes, that eternally neutral force, was actually the mastermind who had stirred up human history and nearly triggered a war among the gods?
Mr. Mystery smiled faintly. "Alpha and Omega have been dissatisfied for a long time with Little Garden's declining potential. If that's the case, choosing to force change isn't strange at all, is it?"
Kalki stared in shock. "Mr. Mystery… you actually called those two by name…"
In Little Garden, the true names of two-digit beings could not be spoken lightly.
Calling their names would create a karmic link, allowing them to observe the caller directly.
For anyone, that was fatal. It meant losing all secrets in the eyes of a two-digit existence.
"Relax," Mr. Mystery said with a chuckle. "Once you hold an authority of your own, you'll understand. Calling their names without triggering their automatic perception isn't that hard."
Then he reminded him, "Compared to all that, you should be paying closer attention to Yagami. Don't forget, your Spirit Rank needs Sun Authority to grow."
Kalki's pupils contracted again, disbelief written all over his face.
"You're saying Ryo might compete with me for Sun Authorities? But he already has…"
"You mean Leo?" Mr. Mystery laughed knowingly. "Don't assume you're the only one who needs multiple Sun Authorities to grow."
Kalki's expression shifted, a mix of confusion and shock as he murmured to himself, "So that's how it is… He's also a special type of Another Cosmology holder…"
"No wonder you warned me to be careful of Ryo Yagami…"
Another cosmology that required Sun Authority to awaken was rare. But when two appeared at the same time, their holders becoming enemies was almost inevitable.
There were only twenty-five solar authorities in total, each tied to a different lineage. If two Another Cosmology required the same one, conflict and bloodshed were entirely possible.
So, on the path to completing himself, Ryo was an enemy he was destined to face.
With that thought, Kalki fell silent.
After a long while, he let out a sigh. "Mr. Mystery, I've been separated from my subordinates. I may need your help."
"Small matter," Mr. Mystery replied easily. "But what are you planning next? Still going to steal Arcadia's flag?"
"No…"
Kalki's gaze flickered. He sighed again.
"Facing one who holds a cosmology is far beyond conventional combat power. Without playing its trump cards, Ouroboros has no chance of taking anything from Ryo Yagami."
"And after the Ares incident, even if the First Union wants to blame me for failure, they won't have much ground to stand on. I can even turn it around and accuse them of faulty intelligence. After all, seizing a flag from a community guarded by a four-digit freak is impossible with the strength we brought."
Mr. Mystery asked meaningfully, "So what do you intend to do, to the point that you're asking me to retrieve your people?"
Kalki took a deep breath and spoke with resolve.
"The Taurus Sun Authority. I think it's time I went and claimed it."
.
.
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