Chapter 259: Dean Silver: The Suggestion Here Is to Just Cook the Rice Until It’s Done
“Yes, your ‘Mechanical Flesh’ cult… you advocate replacing human limbs and organs with mechanical prosthetics, achieving a fleshly ascension to enhance combat ability.”
“Such a doctrine clearly walked at the forefront of the times long ago. Yet those people pay no heed to your sect’s opinions, still clinging to theories from hundreds of years ago.”
“If this goes on, the Gravekeepers and other cults will surely suffer a huge loss when they besiege the Holy Sword Wielder!”
On the Empire’s border, within a remote chapel.
The Patriarch of the Iron Cross Cult spoke indignantly, venting on behalf of Ophelia’s covert agent—a puppet with the public identity of leader of the Mechanical Flesh cult.
“I personally witnessed the power of your modified body before.”
“Though you exude no aura of the extraordinary, the laser cannon hidden inside you can instantly kill any being below the Sixth Tier… and it can be used again simply by replacing the energy battery, unlike ordinary extraordinaries who must rest long after using a killing move.”
“Still, your Mechanical Flesh cult members are truly ruthless.”
The Patriarch of the Iron Cross glanced at the other with faint dread, even horror, in his tone: “Not only limbs, but you even dare to modify core organs such as the heart.”
Previously, in order to verify the other’s identity, he had toured that so-called “Mechanical Flesh Cult” under Ophelia’s lead—each of those modified people was a lunatic, eager to turn their entire body into iron.
As a believer of the Iron Cross, whose creed was built upon torture, destruction, and trampling other lives, he had thought his own faith twisted enough—perverse even among the many cult groups.
Yet compared to this lunatic who replaced all flesh with machinery, the Patriarch realized he was still a mere novice.
In front of this solid lump of metal… he felt not even the urge for his favorite pastime of gut-ripping.
After all, who could tell whether the heart pulled out would be a beating organ, or a miniature nuclear fusion reactor ready to explode at any moment?
…
In the Imperial Capital, inside a quiet yet heavily guarded courtyard.
A dim-blue light screen spread across the table. Using the Astral Realm as a medium, it streamed the puppet’s real-time vision through a wide-range communication network.
By the table sat a girl with chestnut half-long hair, clad in a western dress, her doll-like face exquisite. She stared at the screen while adjusting her spiritual power in real time, fine-tuning the puppet’s movements so it appeared more lifelike, more like a real human.
To manipulate a metal puppet until it rivaled a living being required an immense demand on the controller’s spiritual strength.
Thus, only Ophelia, a genius Mechanist, could accomplish such a feat—though not without heavy strain.
But since this involved her elder royal sister and the boy Ophelia secretly admired, she forced herself to persist, continuing to play the role of “Leader of the Mechanical Flesh Cult” in order to gather more intelligence.
Yet her investigation had reached a bottleneck.
“Though I managed to mix in as a minor cult leader,”
“In the end, the status is too low. I cannot take part in meetings led by the Gravekeepers, nor can I learn the inner details of their plans?”
Ophelia let out a faint sigh.
She took a sip of coffee from the cup by her side, the bitterness spreading across her tongue, drowning her taste buds.
“I say, why is someone so young sighing all the time?”
“If you keep sighing like this, your soul—so painstakingly purified—will grow impure again. Then what will happen to my meal ticket?”
On her shoulder, a large snow ferret yawned widely, flicking its fluffy tail against Ophelia’s shoulder.
“The investigation of the covert agent has run into obstacles, for now it’s stalled… All I know is that the cults are preparing to launch actions against the Imperial Capital soon, but the details are still beyond me.”
Ophelia cast a glance at Dean Silver on her shoulder.
Perhaps because that day at Starfall University, when the two of them had worked together beside the sleeping boy Rast’s hospital bed to contact him, a bond had formed.
Since her last hospital visit to see Rast, Dean Silver had abandoned his old meal ticket, Akxia, and instead chosen to follow Ophelia.
In Dean Silver’s own words, this was a friendship and bond born from sharing a mutual secret.
But to Ophelia, it was simply this gossiping ferret seeking entertainment.
“Just a simple setback in the investigation?”
Perched on her shoulder, Dean Silver narrowed his ruby-like eyes: “Back when you manipulated those nobles of the Imperial Capital, no matter the difficulty you always brimmed with confidence and certainty.”
“Yet now, a small obstacle has you sighing like this?”
Wisdom flickered in the ferret’s eyes: “Could it be… you’re still brooding over what I told you a few days ago… about that Emis?”
“Thinking her bond with Rast is too deep… that you cannot find any angle to surpass her?”
“If you ask me, your thinking is still too shallow, too immature.” Dean Silver swayed his fluffy tail, like one fanning chaos: “If you can’t win emotionally, then conquer him physically.”
“Right now, little Rast is still lying in the hospital bed, in a vegetative state.”
“You just sneak into his ward one night, slip into the blanket and take him—cook the rice until it’s done, and that’s that.”
“You’ll instantly overtake your sister and Emis by a mile.”
“Ferret, Brother Rast once told me a proverb: ‘Disaster comes from the mouth.’”
Hearing the bad ideas whispered in her ear, Ophelia’s lips curled into a dangerous smile.
In the past, when they were not so familiar, even somewhat antagonistic, she hadn’t felt this way.
But the closer she grew to Dean Silver, the more she realized this gossiping, sharp-tongued ferret was simply asking for a beating.
Soon, however, Ophelia’s eyes shifted.
On the light screen, the Patriarch of the Iron Cross finally exhaled and spoke again.
“Though the Lord has not answered my calls for many years, as His most devout believers, we must not give up.”
“I intend to perform another prayer ritual, in hopes the Lord will descend with divine revelation.”
“This hidden war against the Empire may decide the world’s future… If the Iron Cross Cult is excluded, then the Western Continent will have no place for us.”
Yet despite his words, his voice still carried despair, as if he held little expectation.
Ophelia could understand well.
According to the intelligence she had gathered, this Iron Cross cult was an old one… and their god was the Evil God of Deep Blue Port, who had once descended in the Sixth Era, causing the Iron Cross Plague.
In the Seventh Era, with Order in ascendancy, these believers had adapted. Though still bloodthirsty, they learned restraint when necessary, unlike their unchecked slaughter in the Sixth.
Yet, two or three years ago, this Evil God of Deep Blue Port abruptly cut off contact with the Western Continent from the Threshold of Seraphim, no longer answering prayers.
Without their god’s revelation, stripped of miracles, the Iron Cross Cult quickly fell, dropping to the level of upstart sects like the Mechanical Flesh cult.
Many followers abandoned their faith, leaving only the most devout struggling to uphold it.
The Patriarch drew out a sculpture, along with ritual items: cobwebs, lead blocks, a black iron cross, and an iron idol.
He bowed his head in silent prayer.
“Creator of all, God of gods, the root of all greatness.”
“You are one, and you are all. You are the beginning, and the end.”
“You are higher than the stars, longer-lasting than the blazing sun; you are the instant, and the eternal.”
“You transcend galaxies, clusters, superclusters, the observable universe, the Small Chiliocosm, the Middle Chiliocosm, the Great Chiliocosm. The ‘Unquantifiable Land,’ with worlds as numerous as the sands of the Mitro River—you created it all.”
As he prayed, he slashed his wrist.
Blood sprayed onto the idol, rising in wisps of smoke.
“You transcend all matter, all meaning, all concept, all spirit and language. You are the effect of all causes, the cause of all effects.”
“You are the end of the infinite box, the limit of the exponential tower.”
“You encompass all possibilities, all past, present, and future, the beginning and the end. Omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent—contradictions of logic and causality all coexist within you.”
“You are unobservable, immeasurable—impossible to see, impossible to describe. To speak errs, to think deceives. What I portray now is but a feeble projection of you, after infinite descension.”
“Now, please bestow your blessing upon your most devout believer. Grant us revelation for the bright future to come.”
…
Listening to the cult leader’s fervent prayer, Ophelia felt dazed.
As head of the Empire’s secret intelligence bureau, she had heard many cult prayers.
But none were like this Iron Cross prayer.
Other cults, at most, praised their gods as “Lord of the Silver Moon,” “Incarnation of the Sun,” or “King of the Sky and Sea, Tyrant of Disaster,” or “Earth Mother.”
Yet this prayer soared into another dimension—spouting scientific terms like galaxies, clusters, superclusters, observable universe.
Had she not studied science deeply as a Mechanist, she might not even have understood.
Since when did cult prayers sound like this?
Compared to others, it was like crushing spear-wielding primitives with a Tiger tank.
And this shameless boasting style…
For some reason, a black-haired boy’s figure flashed in her mind.
Somehow, only he could speak such nonsense with a straight face.
By her side, Dean Silver’s eyes widened too.
At first it seemed normal, but the more he listened, the more wrong it felt.
Wasn’t this exactly the “infinite box” rhetoric Rast had used in the Historical Echo of the Sixth Era, during the Shoreguards’ Ballad dungeon, to fool those cultists?
That Evil God of Deep Blue Port was shameless indeed—scammed once by Rast, and now actually stealing his words for prayer.
As this thought rose—
The idol in the Patriarch’s hands suddenly erupted with dazzling white light.
At once, the Patriarch shouted in ecstasy.
His emotions nearly lost control, his figure twisted by supernatural light. Tears streamed down his face.
“Three years—three years!”
“Lord, you have finally answered your most faithful believer… At last, I have received your revelation again!”