Chapter 194: Pillar of the Present World

Wu Chang was a little guilty, but after hesitating for a moment, he still agreed to Archbishop Yan's request.

He figured the other party couldn't slip into the Wasteland Realm to make a move on him — what was there to fear about a few words?

Besides, once the other party entered the Wasteland Realm, that would be his home turf; if they really wanted to have a go with him, they wouldn't be going back without taking a couple of elbows to the face.

Having obtained Wu Chang's consent, Archbishop Yan left on the spot and began making preparations.

And in the private chapel where Wu Chang was, several people looked at him with eyes full of envy and jealousy.

In just a little over ten minutes, Yu Na's attitude toward Wu Chang had already gone through three shifts.

From a life-saving benefactor at the start, to a powerful major patron, and now to a chosen one who could speak with the gods.

Let alone ordinary believers — even for her, a bishop with real authority, the gods were lofty and untouchable.

In Revelation, only the Patriarch and a handful of archbishops had ever heard the true god's will, and every time they spoke of it, they regarded it as a tremendous honor.

When the true god issued a decree, the believers below had always thought only of accepting it — accepting it on their knees.

When had it ever been that before the true god bestowed a decree, he needed to first seek a mortal's opinion and ask whether he might have a few words with you?

Yu Na gazed at Wu Chang with a complicated look and asked, "What exactly is your identity?"

Wu Chang spread his hands. "Didn't you see? Your organization's new client — that's all."

As the light in the altar flared, Yu Na and the others withdrew reluctantly and left the chapel.

Without the god's invitation, one must not spy on the god.

It's not because that would be disrespectful to the god — mainly because one's will can't hold up. Plenty of believers, clinging to the notion of "ask the way in the morning, and dying in the evening would be enough," have tried to sneak a peek at the Patriarch or an archbishop receiving divine edicts.

The result was naturally seeking benevolence and attaining it — death or madness, without exception.

Precisely for this reason, being summoned by the true god is the supreme honor; it means the true god has me in his heart, and when he speaks to me, he has to shield me while he talks.

Under Archbishop Yan's operation, Wu Chang, through his Law-Breaking Eyes, saw a cross-realm communication ritual take shape on the altar.

He watched very carefully — a single glance was enough to parse the principles of this occult ritual. Replicating it wouldn't be difficult, and the energy it consumed wasn't much; very practical.

Learned it.

Just as he was secretly studying Revelation's signature communication ritual, a figure of light appeared in the middle of the altar. From the outline, it was a woman in a long robe, wearing a tall pointed hood that spiraled like an inverted horn.

Unless something unexpected happened, the woman was the true god worshipped by Revelation — and the Christine mentioned by Layman.

Wu Chang looked at the figure of light before him and asked proactively, "I wonder what business the true god of Revelation has with a small fry like me from the Wasteland Realm."

"You are no small fry."

Christine said meaningfully. She walked over to the "Research Report on Miracles and Wish-Power," sniffed it a few times, and said:

"I smell an aura on it."

Wu Chang said a little awkwardly, "Sorry, the seaside air is damp — the parchment has gone a bit moldy."

If he weren't afraid of her turning hostile, Wu Chang would have said this was his reading material for the privy.

Christine didn't care about Wu Chang's clowning around; she went on regardless, "I smelled on it the aura of that little girl who snatched my terrestrial god-realm not long ago. The matter of Wanghai City — was that your doing?"

Wu Chang's gaze instantly drifted. No way, buddy — if you'd said earlier we were going to chat about this, I wouldn't have taken the job.

Is the true god of Revelation part dog? She can smell that out?

If he denied it, would this woman lean in close to sniff him and then say, "That smell — that's the smell of a lie"?

Since she dared to say it out loud, she must already be fairly certain; there was no point in staying stubborn.

Wu Chang put on a simple, honest grin, scratched his head, and said, "I didn't snatch it — I picked it up. I saw that terrestrial god-realm just sitting there in Wanghai City, no name written on it, so I figured nobody wanted it."

Christine's body paused for a moment — clearly she hadn't expected Wu Chang to be so shameless. She continued:

"Then the terrestrial god-realm on the cruise ship the day before yesterday — you picked that up too?"

Wu Chang shook his head vigorously and said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "Snatching something from the Tranquil Sect — can that even be called snatching?"

Christine gave a light laugh, a note of approval in her tone, and said, "I like that line. Considering you've been giving Layman such a hard time, I won't hold Wanghai City against you — consider that terrestrial god-realm a gift to you."

Wu Chang breathed a sigh of relief at that, but then a question rose from the bottom of his heart: Christine wasn't here to call him to account — so why insist on a call with him? Just to give him a warning?

"Since you don't care about the Wanghai City matter, then what else did you want with me?"

Christine said, "To tell you the piece of intelligence you want to know. The people you've been in contact with only know a very small part of it, so it has to be me who tells you personally."

"And besides — a small fellow from the Wasteland Realm who can snatch my god-realm twice, I'd like to have a chat with you too."

Wu Chang muttered to himself: at most that counts as snatching one-point-five — no, one-point-two. The one on the Star Leap was the Tranquil Sect's terrestrial god-realm.

Christine didn't seem to possess any mind-reading ability. She said to Wu Chang:

"You want to know why the attack on the four major organizations some time ago affected the entire Wasteland Realm? It's simple — because that explosion didn't just affect the power-spaces of the four major organizations you mentioned; it also affected the connection between Abyss Layer One and Abyss Layer Two."

"The connection between Abyss Layer One and Abyss Layer Two?" Wu Chang furrowed his brow. The inside story behind that explosion seemed even more explosive than he'd imagined.

Christine continued:

"You don't look like a core member of any faction. How much do you know about Abyss Layer Two?"

Wu Chang said honestly, "All I know is that once a player enters Abyss Layer Two, there are a lot of restrictions on returning to the real world."

Christine gave Wu Chang a surprised glance. "You really aren't a core member of any other faction. Then would you be interested in joining Revelation? Whatever treatment you want, I can give it to you — if you want to take a few planes to play with, I can arrange that for you."

Wu Chang clicked his tongue. So that was just fishing for information earlier — these old foxes, you can't let your guard down for a second talking to them.

But then again, he'd originally thought the Bureau directly giving him a permanent post and an apartment was already a great benefit — but faced with Christine casually tossing out a few planes, the competitiveness was still too weak.

"Sorry, I already have a faith, and I have no plans to bind myself to any faction for now. If someday I reach Abyss Layer Three, maybe we can cooperate."

If it were anyone else — a Wasteland Realm player who'd just hit level 24 daring to talk about entering Abyss Layer Three and cooperating with a high-ranking god — that'd be like a stud pig ringing the doorbell: who do you think you are?

But with Wu Chang, Christine didn't find it laughable — only a pity.

"If you change your mind later, you can come find me anytime. Then let me continue the previous topic — as I expected, you don't know much about Abyss Layer Two. Have you ever thought about this: the Wasteland Realm has a planar barrier that blocks us gods from entering. We have to use a terrestrial god-realm, or some other method, to bypass the planar barrier's obstruction before we can appear in the Wasteland Realm."

"You so-called players can leave the Wasteland Realm and come to the Reason Realm of Abyss Layer Two — that proves your power level has surpassed the Wasteland Realm's planar barrier. So why is it you can go back to reality whenever you want, with no obstruction at all?"

"You have to understand — the base plane your world is on, what you call reality, has a planar barrier around it that's thicker and more restrictive than the Wasteland Realm's."

Wu Chang nodded along as he listened. Christine wasn't wrong — his attention had mainly been on his own affairs; after all, he'd only recently joined the Abyss Game, and Abyss Layer Two was still too far off for him.

Now that he thought about it, his earlier assumption that players could return to reality from the Abyss's second layer was because the existence of the Abyss Game granted players sufficient privileges.

But Shi Ning had clearly told him that players returning to reality from the Abyss's second layer also faced extremely harsh conditions, which proved that even the Abyss Game could not exempt players from the planar barrier.

He said, as if suddenly understanding: "The four major organizations possess some kind of ability that lets high-plane players bypass the planar barrier and smuggle themselves back to reality, as if summoned by a divine kingdom on earth?!"

Christine laughed and said, "You're indeed very clever. They do have such an ability."

"They control thirty-six planes situated between the Abyss's first and second layers, using them as passages to bind together what should have been completely separated. In your terms, these passages are called the Thirty-Six Pillars of the Present World."

When the topic turned to instances, Wu Chang came alive. He asked doubtfully, "

Using instances as passages means they must be real instances. Can they guarantee that traversing an instance each time won't affect its pollution value? Or is it that the instances have already been broken through, and they have a way to share the broken-through instances?"

Christine: "That only goes to show you don't just lack understanding of the Abyss's second layer—you don't understand the entire Abyss Game well enough."

Wu Chang: …

Damn, he got looked down on.

Christine had no intention of feeling superior over Wu Chang. She answered directly: "Not every instance's endpoint must be a binary choice between losing control and breaking through. People can ascend—why can't planes ascend? When a plane in the Abyss's first layer meets certain requirements and begins ascending to the second layer, if it fails at the very moment of completion, it falls into a special intermediate-layer state."

"Instances in the intermediate-layer state are completely stable in nature. They're wedged between the two layers—no matter what you do, they can't be broken through and sent back to the Wasteland Realm, nor can they lose control and fully ascend to the Reason Realm."

"These intermediate-layer instances are the so-called Pillars of the Present World. The four major organizations hid them very well—only core players within their ranks, or players granted their permission, can briefly borrow them."

"Some time ago, the explosions that hit the four major organizations were meant to destroy the camouflage and access permissions of these Pillars of the Present World. Now they've become public—their entrances refresh randomly throughout your world, and anyone who finds an entrance can enter them."

Wu Chang had understood everything up to this point, but at this remark he was lost again.

"You said these Pillars of the Present World are instances stuck in the intermediate layer—impossible to clear, impossible to lose control. If that's the case, what's the point of going to such trouble to make them public? Just so that players from other factions in the Abyss's second layer can also return to the real world?"

Christine shook her head: "Quite the opposite. Making the Pillars public wasn't to let people use them—it was to destroy them. Someone discovered a way to destroy these intermediate-layer instances and make them completely lose control and ascend to the Abyss's second layer, and they've already started doing it."

Making the Pillars of the Present World public—to destroy them?

This conclusion made Wu Chang grit his teeth. If what Christine said was true, then all his previous speculations would probably have to be overturned and re-estimated from scratch.

The first thing to reassess was the mysterious organization.

By common sense, they had no reason to destroy the Pillars of the Present World. The Pillars were the passages back to reality—if they didn't want to return to reality, they didn't need to go through such trouble; they simply needed not to come back.

!

And those who wanted to destroy the Pillars of the Present World should have the goal of completely severing the Abyss's first and second layers, so that players from higher planes could no longer influence players from lower planes.

Analyzing from this angle, the mysterious organization's actions had two possibilities.

One: if the ones who destroyed the Pillars of the Present World and attacked the four major organizations were them, then their goal was probably to prevent the four major organizations' high-level players from returning to reality—using this method to create a temporary shortage of high-end combat power for the four major organizations in reality, thereby achieving certain objectives.

But this possibility didn't hold up.

Even without relying on players from the Abyss's second layer, the four major organizations were still the four major organizations. In fact, when everyone lacked high-end combat power, the four major organizations—backed by nations—possessed overwhelming combat power in the Wasteland Realm.

The possibility Wu Chang leaned more toward was the second.

If the ones who destroyed the Pillars of the Present World and attacked the four major organizations were not the mysterious organization he had identified, then this was very likely a plan staged by the four major organizations themselves.

One had to understand that players who had entered the Abyss's second layer had already reached the level of superheroes from animation and films—the force and laws of ordinary human society could no longer restrain them.

Just as he had guessed before, without their players from the Abyss's second layer, the four major organizations were still the four major organizations.

But for the rulers of the four major organizations in the real world, without players from the Abyss's second layer, they were the bosses. With those living fathers hovering over their heads, they themselves became puppets instead.

If they could take the opportunity to sever their connection to the Abyss's second layer, no one could shake their position—wouldn't that be wonderful?

This way, the mysterious organization's reaction also made sense.

Perhaps they had already gotten wind of it earlier, sensed that the little brother from the lower realm wanted to backstab them, and kicked him out so he couldn't go home.

But they were too constrained in reality to act personally, so they used the method of letting instances lose control, letting the instances erode and attack reality, to create the illusion of a mutually-destructive outcome and force the four major organizations to back down.

Wu Chang sucked in a sharp breath, seeming to think more and more that this was how it was.

Rather than speculate on his own, better to ask the deity before him who clearly knew the inside story.

He put on the sycophantic smile of Park Changmin from the Silent Voyage instance. "Your Grace Christine, could you tell me what exactly the goal of those people destroying the Pillars of the Present World is?"

Christine said slowly, "That would be the second question."

Wu Chang immediately said, "Can I take out a loan? Tell me the answer first, and I'll find you an item of similar quality later."

Christine hesitated for a moment, then finally shook her head.

"Two items!" Wu Chang got serious. His instinct told him the truth of this matter was extremely important—not just for him, but for the entire world.

"This has nothing to do with items—it's about you. At this point, the outcome of the Pillars of the Present World and the Wasteland Realm is already fixed, unchangeable. You can't stop it—even adding that little girl who seized my divine kingdom won't help."

"If I tell you, it will only lead to your death. You're interesting—you shouldn't die in the Wasteland Realm, so I won't tell you."

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow and said, "The outcome is already fixed? Really? I don't believe it."

Christine said with a smile, "Then you can prove it to me."

"I will." Wu Chang nodded heavily. He paused for a moment, then finally asked:

"One last question—is this research report really that important to you? Important enough that you'd tell me such classified intelligence?"

Christine said, "It's of no great use to me. I just found you interesting and told you specially."

"In that case, can I take the thing?" Wu Chang asked tentatively.

He was the type of good man who managed his household frugally. If Christine had no use for it, he could recover the item and trade it with the Revelation later.

Christine:?

She had never seen such a brazen and shameless person.

"I have no use for it, but my subordinates can use it. I'll take the item. I look forward to your future performance."

After Christine finished speaking, the light and shadow vanished with a whoosh. Vanishing along with it was the "Research Report on Miracles and Wish Power" on the ground.

As the ritual faded, Yu Na and a group of believers walked into the private chapel. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Archbishop Yan, Yu Na led Wu Chang away from the site.

Before leaving, Yu Na asked, "Did you get the intel you wanted?"

Wu Chang nodded, then shook his head.

"I learned part of it, but what I learned only made me more confused."

Yu Na took the opportunity to ask, "Then would you like to come by my place for a bit?"

Facing Yu Na's invitation, Wu Chang declined, "That wouldn't be proper, would it? Your husband's first seven-day memorial isn't even a few days past yet — it'd hardly be appropriate for us to be like this."

Yu Na tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear and said, with a gaze thick enough to draw strings of cheese:

"You don't actually think some nouveau riche who only joined the cult through sponsorship could really marry the cult's bishop, do you? I married Tang Renquan only to better take control of his assets and to obtain a convenient, above-board identity for moving around."

"Forget that he's dead — even if he were alive, he'd have to open the door for you himself."

Wu Chang swallowed once, silently mourning the deceased Tang Renquan for a second — but then, recalling that the fellow wasn't exactly a good sort either, he instantly felt the man had gotten exactly what he deserved.

He hesitated a moment, then still refused Yu Na's invitation. This woman was playing at far too high a level, and this wasn't his area of expertise; if he were to engage her in close combat rashly, wouldn't he end up devoured down to the bone?

"There's still someone at home waiting for me to come back. Maybe some other time — next time, for sure."

On the Wanghai City side, while Wu Chang's True Self was escorting Yu Na out of Wanghai City and accompanying her to the safehouse to trade intelligence, Wu Chang's main body continued the wrap-up of the manhunt back in Wanghai City.

For him, tonight had gone very smoothly — the haul far exceeded expectations.

But for Director Gao and the others, it wasn't nearly so pleasant. Not only had they failed to catch the person, quite a few Bureau members had been injured by Yu Na's hand — a whole night of busywork for nothing.

Fortunately, Yu Na had been focused entirely on escaping earlier on and hadn't struck to kill, so the problems weren't too serious.

In the lull of wrapping things up, the True Self had already gotten the intelligence from Christine. Wu Chang's main body quite naturally drew close to Director Gao, Meng Yawen, and the others, and asked;

"Director Gao, I just heard you all saying the one who got away is a big shot among the Evil God cultists — beyond the capability of the Wanghai City branch."

"There's one thing I don't understand. Since the Evil God cultists are the Bureau's sworn enemy, and the target we're after is a big shot among them, why didn't we request support from Abyss Layer Two players, and instead forced the operation through with branches from a few other cities?"

Director Gao gave a bitter smile and said, "You think I didn't want to? If I could have called in support, I'd have done it the very first moment — how could I possibly drag everyone into a desperate fight?"

"This is something you'll all find out sooner or later anyway, so I won't hide it from you. Starting a few days ago, the Bureau has already lost contact with Abyss Layer Two."

(End of chapter)