Chapter 191: Clues from Canaan, the Artificial Angel Project
The night was long and quiet. Rast gazed at Dean Silver on the windowsill, while Dean Silver simply stared back at Rast with a pair of innocent, crystal-clear eyes.
One man and one beast locked eyes—wide against narrow—yet neither spoke a word.
After a long silence, it was Rast who coughed lightly and broke the eerie atmosphere.
“These pieces of intelligence... they haven’t been leaked, right?”
“Of course not. Everything regarding your origins has already been classified as the highest-level confidential intelligence in the Arcane Tower. In the present world, the only ones who know about your past are me, Little Tina, the old principal, and perhaps a few sparse members of the royal family…”
“The Night Travelers from the Lionheart Institute certainly have no idea about the earth-shattering feats you pulled off in Deep Blue Port, Frozenwater Town, Paradise and the Nether Abyss, or even the Battle of the Fractured Coastline.”
Dean Silver blinked her ruby-like beast eyes. “So those Night Travelers from the Strategy Team merely followed the standard procedure for exploring a new Nightworld, treating various information from that wildly popular VR Game as nothing more than common exploratory intelligence reports submitted for analysis.”
“As for the name ‘Rast’... it’s entirely normal for an ancient name from the Echo of History in the Nightworld to coincide with someone from the present world. Without knowing your secrets, no one would think twice about it.”
“Don’t worry. Once these pieces of intelligence were compiled into the Arcane Tower’s database, I encrypted and sealed them all myself. No one should uncover any of your little secrets because of this.”
She extended her fluffy, snow-white tail and affectionately draped it over Rast’s shoulders as if slinging an arm around a close friend. “Still, Little Rast…”
“You’re really something else.”
Although Dean Silver had already sensed various abnormalities in Rast during previous livestreams, she hadn’t expected this much.
Take for instance that little girl named “Grey” whom Rast rescued in Frozenwater Town and even gave a name to—she reappeared ten years later in a new Echo of History, remembering everything about Rast and reuniting with him again.
Understand, Starfall University’s past understanding of the Nightworld treated it and the Echoes of History as merely independent reflections of the past—replicas derived from true historical events.
No matter what the Night Travelers did in the Echo of History, once they cleared the Nightworld, the entire replica would reset and be wiped clean. It wasn’t supposed to affect actual past history in any way.
But Rast was different.
From the very beginning, he had been trapped in Deep Blue Port—nearly mistaken by Shiltina as a replica NPC. That was just the start... later, his actions in other Echoes of History went on to directly alter future historical developments, even causing permanent changes.
Dean Silver was completely baffled—other Night Travelers merely explored the Nightworld like a death game, but Rast seemed to have truly traversed time and space, personally participating in the past.
Still, Dean Silver didn’t dwell too much on it.
Since she couldn’t figure it out, she decided not to. After all, she was just an ordinary snow ferret, not cut out for brain-intensive tasks. That was work for the two-legged beasts.
Besides, she had already made ample early investments in Rast when he was at his weakest... clinging to this golden-tier—no, prismatic-tier meal ticket. The more incredible his achievements, the tastier and more valuable her meal ticket became—pure profit, no loss.
“Though I had my suspicions, I never expected Grey to actually reach this level.”
There was a hint of emotion in Rast’s voice.
In his mind, the memories of time spent with Grey resurfaced—
In Frozenwater Town, that night when she sneaked into his room to steal the Shoreguard badge belonging to him and Shiltina, hoping to exchange it for a chance to join the Shoreguards for protection. Back then, she was like a timid little beast.
At the headquarters of the Shoreguards, the Watchtower—after passing the rookie assessment, walking alone on a street stained red by the sunset, as solitary as a little match girl… Until she saw him, and the light returned to her pale green eyes.
On the cliffside of the Royal City of Paradise, after learning of his betrayal, she had raced up under the pouring rain, crying and shouting in pain and fury, asking why he had betrayed the Shoreguards—kneeling in the mud, helplessly weeping.
Then the reunion three years later at the Sacred Rite—she unleashed hundreds of Temporal Rewinds in an attempt to stop his ascension. When she realized it was all futile, she made a desperate choice and initiated the Grand Rollback, returning the world to the very beginning.
After the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, with her grey hair windswept by the sea breeze, she took up the mission left by him and Cisel, and on the Rocky Shore, she said goodbye with sorrow in her eyes, as the new Shoreguard…
And now, after nearly two hundred years had passed—
That once-crying, fragile, clingy little girl who loved to snuggle up to him... had she finally grown into a true leader like Cisel, a legendary powerhouse capable of guiding an entire civilization?
Moreover, she had singlehandedly revived the ravaged Sixth Era civilization in less than two hundred years after the Battle of the Fractured Coastline—ushering in an unprecedentedly prosperous Science-Fiction Era.
“But thinking about it more carefully, I suppose it’s not that surprising.”
Rast chuckled. “What Grey holds is the mighty power called ‘Fate.’”
“She can, to a certain extent, rewind time—even glimpse the future. If someone like her became the leader of a civilization, then that civilization would naturally gain an unimaginable ability to trial and error...”
“To be able to directly avoid the detours that other civilizations inevitably encounter during development, and to never make a mistake in any major decision that determines the fate of the civilization—”
“It’s only natural that such a civilization would rapidly advance beyond the present world’s technological level.”
“Yeah. Honestly, among the Nightworld intel the Strategy Team brought back, that kind of VR Game which uses neural signals to fully simulate real sensations and touch, allowing players to fully dive into virtual reality—I really want to try it myself.”
Dean Silver flicked her fluffy tail, a look of yearning flashing in her ruby-like beast eyes.
As a thoroughly reclusive ferret, Dean Silver’s greatest joy in life was lying flat, drinking Happy Water while playing all sorts of video games.
It was easy to imagine just how enticing a full-dive VR Game must be to a reclusive ferret—virtual reality where dreams and fantasies could come true, like a paradise where everything one could want was within reach.
By then, wouldn’t she have an endless supply of dried fish? She could even set up Rast and Shiltina as her two poop-scooping servants in the game—one fanning her and the other brushing her fur...
Just imagining it painted too beautiful a picture—truly the peak of a ferret’s life.
Dean Silver shook her little head, withdrawing from her blissful daydream, and looked back at Rast in front of her. “Anyway, you’re already something of a minor celebrity in the future Nightworld.”
“In that Nightworld, there exists a virtual reality game modeled on real historical events, known as a ‘continent-sweeping, wildly popular, super-famous romantic development war-epic virtual reality full-dive game.’”
“And you are the wildly popular character in that game based on history—standing alongside ‘Blazing Sun Lionheart’ Cisel, you are ‘The Man Forgotten by Time,’ ‘The Lonely King Who Turned His Back on All,’ Rast.”
“Dean Silver, did you seriously emphasize those two names of mine, both cringe and chuunibyou-sounding, on purpose?”
“Did I?” Dean Silver blinked innocently. “Mainly because, Little Rast, your title is just too cool. If I were a player and saw such an edgy and badass title, I’d absolutely whale dozens of pulls on the spot.”
“Back to the point.”
Dean Silver cleared her throat. “Since you’ve asked me to gather this intelligence, it means you’re preparing to enter the Nightworld. So I suggest you be ready to conceal your identity when you enter the Echo of History—otherwise, just walking down the street with that face of yours, you’ll probably be swarmed like a high-fidelity cosplayer.”
“Of course, when necessary, you can reveal your identity to seek help. Your name is well-known... though you might still need to find a way to prove who you are.”
“Also.”
Dean Silver paused slightly. “If you’re thinking of directly clinging to Grey’s thigh once you enter the replica, that probably won’t work.”
“Why?”
Rast looked at Dean Silver.
To be honest, that was exactly the first idea that popped into Rast’s mind—
After all, according to Dean Silver, Grey had already become the leader of that technological civilization and had broken into the Legendary Realm a hundred years ago.
If possible, he only needed to find Grey in that Echo of History and reunite with her, and he could logically obtain the support of all human civilization—whether for completing the missions issued by the Nightworld or investigating the clues about Canaan and Xiao Ai, everything would become much easier.
As for the girl who had once been granted a name by him, who had followed his lead like a guiding light, now achieving the status of a lofty legendary powerhouse, flipping the power dynamic between them completely—Rast didn’t mind that at all.
He was always someone who valued efficiency above all else. As long as the goal could be achieved, his dignity, laws, even secular morals, were all things he could discard.
Not to mention, Rast didn’t believe that Grey’s personality would change drastically after just two hundred years… Even in the most extreme case—if Grey’s affection for him had transformed into something twisted over time, and she wanted to forcefully dominate him in some kind of yandere scenario—Rast wouldn’t really care either.
If he were that concerned, he wouldn’t have become the top host at a nightclub during the three-hundred-year loop in Deep Blue Port just to please himself.
“According to the latest intel from the Lionheart Institute’s Night Travelers, that legendary leader Grey broke through to the Legendary Realm shortly after the end of the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, more than a hundred years ago.”
“And around ten years ago in Nightworld’s timeline, Grey underwent another breakthrough and transformation… surpassing the original Legendary Tier and ascending to an even higher level.”
Dean Silver blinked. “That would be the Eighth Tier, beyond the symbolic Seventh Tier of the Legendary Realm.”
“In other words, the so-called—”
“‘Angel.’”
Angel?
Rast’s thoughts stirred.
In his past understanding of secrets, the Legendary Realm and the Seventh Tier were considered the limit.
He had speculated before—like that nameless Fool who created the Fool’s Library in the Age of Gods, or the Fire Thief who left the Gravekeepers and founded the Shoreguards, the original Shoreguard… perhaps they had surpassed the Legendary Realm and reached even greater heights.
But those were merely guesses. This was the first time Rast had heard a concrete clue that someone had actually reached the Eighth Tier.
Grey had truly gotten that far?
“If the Legendary Realm represents the human limit, when life begins its transformation from human to non-human—”
“Then the Eighth Tier, the so-called Angel, is a true Mythic Being who has set foot into the Domain of Gods.”
“Those so-called Evil Gods trapped within the Threshold of Seraphim… most of them are also at the Eighth Tier, though they must venture even deeper—what people call ‘Demigods’ or ‘False Gods.’”
“However, to the new civilization of the Sixth Era, their leader achieving the Eighth Tier and becoming an ‘Angel’ was not entirely a good thing.”
Dean Silver’s tone grew more serious. “Because not long after she became an Angel, Grey suddenly disappeared.”
“Before she vanished, she left only two things behind for the civilization of the Sixth Era. One was the virtual reality game modeled on Sixth Era history.”
“That’s why the game became so popular—many players believe it contains clues left behind by leader Grey regarding the secrets of her disappearance.”
“And the second… was a mechanical creation project called ‘Artificial Angel.’”
Dean Silver looked into Rast’s eyes:
“While investigating the ‘Artificial Angel’ mechanical creation project, some Night Travelers…”
“Discovered scattered references related to ‘Canaan.’”