Chapter 617: New Intelligence in the Chat Channel

New Intelligence in the Chat Channel

Busy days were fulfilling yet brief, and time quickly arrived before the next special trial.

It had only been a day since returning from the Grand Inquisition, but in that single day, Cheng Shi had indeed accomplished quite a lot.

He first called Hu Xuan, but the call did not go through; considering the other party might be giving birth in some trial again, Cheng Shi honestly abandoned the plan to ring the silent infant bell.

No need, truly no need; there was no urgent matter, so contact whenever free; after all, compared to other players, this sister's survival ability need not be overly worried about, and naturally her fertility ability was the same.

Afterwards, he began to carefully review the chat contents of various channels missed over these few days; the speed of faith fusion was obviously accelerating, especially recently, almost presenting a burst-like trend; he must understand how the first tier of various faith camps currently stood.

This was not only to gather intelligence on other players for himself, but more importantly, he needed to find traces in these faith fusions to analyze which camps they actually belonged to.

From Cheng Shi's understanding, currently there were still only three camps: the Fear Faction, the Zhongli Sect, and the Approach Faction; naturally, the divisions of these factions were all related to their attitudes toward 【The Origin】.

The Approach Faction needs no elaboration; before determining who is neutral, perhaps they can all be temporarily classified under the Approach Faction, especially 【Prosperity】 and 【Decay】; these two must be the backbone of the Approach Faction.

Unfortunately, the backbone has now truly become "bones": one left no corpse, the other is bent on rotting.

And Cheng Shi's patron 【Fate】 was undoubtedly also a member of the Approach Faction; although it was unknown why 【Fate】 wanted to approach 【The Origin】, 【Fate】's various actions, especially the point of disagreement with the Trickster God, had already proven 【Fate】's inclination.

In that case, 【Foolishness】 and 【Truth】 were likely also of the Approach Faction; at least 【Foolishness】 was, because 【Fate】 wanted to connect with 【Foolishness】, and 【Foolishness】's path of fusion included this second god of 【Chaos】.

【Truth】 The single-minded pursuit of becoming a "god" is known to all deities; as for whether the desire to become a god stemmed from piety or something else, it was currently unknown, but at least 【Truth】's actions were indeed approaching that unreachable 【Him】.

As for the Zhongli Sect... to be honest, Cheng Shi did not understand; this term was heard by him from the mouth of the my lord on the Bone Seat.

Judging solely by the literal meaning, the only one he could think of seemed to be the my lord who spoke this word.

【Death】 sits high upon the Divine Seat; having entanglements with the Trickster God yet not deliberately approaching, this state of being both close and distant could indeed be considered neutral.

As for the other gods, there must also be members of the Zhongli Sect, but as for which ones, yes, which ones, because that my lord had said "the neutral ones," so Cheng Shi knew the gods of the Zhongli Sect might be quite numerous.

Looking back at the final Fear Faction, no need to elaborate; the Trickster Faction's Trickster God, only 【Him】 without a doubt.

Actually, Cheng Shi had thought 【Chaos】 was also one, but the problem was 【Order】 had to be one of the Approach Faction; Afloros had said 【Order】 was different from other gods; at the beginning of the Age of Civilization, 【Order】 arrived with supreme authority, meaning other gods were named and granted divine positions by 【The Origin】 at the end of an era, while 【Order】 became the appointed true god at the very beginning of the era.

And 【Scorching Sun】's betrayal was even more because 【Order】 failed to protect 【Him】 at the end of the era, so Cheng Shi inclined toward this kind of speculation, namely:

【Order】's arrival carried the will of 【*He】; 【Scorching Sun】 approached 【Order】 to get closer to 【*He】, but the ending of the era's curtain proved 【Order】 could not change anything, carrying only the will of 【*He】, so 【Scorching Sun】 chose another way to get even closer to 【*He】, and this way was 【Chaos】.

In this light, 【Chaos】 also seemed like the Approach Faction; after all, 【Him】 exerting effort to play the role of an Approach Faction was not something a Fear Faction could do.

However, this was merely Cheng Shi's fancy; as for 【Him】's true purpose, perhaps only 【Him】 knew, no, probably the Trickster God knew too.

Up to now, Cheng Shi's understanding of them came only from the mouths of each 【*He】, but relying solely on hearing gods speak made it impossible to obtain sufficient information, because seeing gods was too difficult, the frequency too low, plus they always stopped short, leading Cheng Shi to remain confused about this complex situation.

That was why he wanted to find some traces in reality; after all, whatever they wanted to push forward would eventually be reflected on the 【Faith Game】.

But facts proved Cheng Shi overthought; those who didn't know might never know; their will was not fully understood and spread across all segments.

Although faith fusion was thriving among the peak player circle, the huge chat channel showed almost no related news; even information like Lin Xi's fusion or Mo Li abandoning his oath was hard to see; most were various guesses about the history of Zhizhou and some major news known to all.

So the four words "known to all" were also divided by circles; at least ordinary players, no matter how hard they tried, could not hear the news from the mouths of those peak players.

This was remarkably similar to the Grand Inquisition in the previous trial; in that case, faith and piety were also flourishing among the players!

However, although not much news of interest was found, one piece of information from the Bard chat channel caught Cheng Shi's interest.

It was a sentence accidentally seen while casually browsing the chat yesterday afternoon; a player in the channel suddenly asked a question, saying his neighbor had disappeared for a long time but was not dead, because his wished-for space trial kept failing; he was also concerned about his neighbor and wanted to ask what exactly happened to his neighbor, and if anyone knew.

Whether he was concerned or not was another matter; upon seeing this message, Cheng Shi immediately thought of his love-struck 【War】 neighbor.

Xie Yang hadn't appeared for a long time either, and this phenomenon was exactly the same as what this person said: no movement at all and the space could not merge.

Don't ask why it couldn't merge; he just knew.

Cheng Shi immediately became interested and followed up; sure enough, there were always experts in the channel; not long after, another player replied saying this situation had also happened to his neighbor, lasting for a few days, but yesterday his neighbor's space suddenly became ownerless and could merge, so he suggested the previous player wait and see; maybe the neighbor would die in a couple of days.

"......"

A very good suggestion, but equivalent to saying nothing.

However, this was not the point; the point was that this statement immediately attracted more onlookers; many said they had encountered such a situation; although these few chat records were not that conspicuous amidst the frantically refreshing channel information, the fact that it sparked discussion among some people showed the strangeness of this matter.

Xie Yang, like many others, had disappeared; could it be that these people were trapped in some trial from which they could not escape?

No, trials would naturally return players upon completion, so their situation could not be being trapped in a trial; rather, it seemed like being trapped in... reality?

Reality... multiple people... trapped... slowly dying...

Why did this sense of déjà vu feel so much like being caught for research after attending some gathering?

Don't you think so, Yu Mu?

But if such a large gathering truly existed, the few people he had met recently could not have been unaware; could it be that this time it was not targeting the high-end game, but a low-end gathering?

But with such a large scale, these peak players should have some news; thinking of this, Cheng Shi pondered for a moment and decided to ask someone.

However, this time he did not make a phone call; instead, he directly took out a key, the 【Death】 ID card personally delivered by Zhang Zhang Jizu!

Yes, he prepared to personally go check out Old Mi Zhang's cemetery, and also drag a few corpses back for storage.

Indeed, after being neighbors with the people of 【War】 for so long, one would get infected, always wanting to keep a few corpses at home.

Of course, this trip was not only for wool-gathering and gathering intelligence; he also had an important matter to ask Zhang Wenjian for help; asking for help was naturally not something that could be done by just a phone call to summon someone, so he decided to go personally to show Old Mi Zhang his sincerity.

Thus that night, he picked up that bone fragment key, twisted it against the air before him, and the end of the key instantly proliferated countless white bones, spreading rapidly and quickly transforming into a bone door standing before Cheng Shi.