Witch, Fireball and Steam Evil God

Chapter 323 Seeing a Rainbow, You've Got It All

Dimension: Canopy

Environment: Unstable, Uninhabitable (Anomaly Coefficient: 59%)

Belief System: Argos

Ethan's eyes flashed with information from the guild handbook. As the blood flowing from his wrist trickled down the metallized bark and into the soil, his anomalous coefficient, which had fallen below 50%, slowly began to rise.

This is a required course for every guild investigator. Most of their daily work involves assisting in repairing anomalies in various planes. The anomaly coefficient is a measurement method for plane stability developed by the guild using a complex formula. When the anomaly coefficient is higher than 70%, the plane can be considered stable and habitable. The guild will set up outposts in some habitable planes.

Once the anomaly coefficient drops below 50%, it means that the plane has the potential to become a "dead star." If the investigators cannot find a remedy before the anomalies all return to zero, they will have to watch helplessly as a prosperous civilization is destroyed.

Several planes have been failed to be defended so far in the guild's archives. Some were submerged by oceans, and others were occupied by incomprehensible anomalous creatures. Ethan now believes that the "Death Star" does not mean that there is no life on the plane, but that it is no longer suitable for human habitation. Even just staying on the plane would be extremely risky.

Just like now.

The plague brought by mechanical monsters is spreading throughout the kingdom. Once the cities fall, the residents will be transformed into mechanically mutated zombies, and the abnormality coefficient of the canopy will drop to zero. At that time, the guild will have to stop its research and exploration of this plane.

However, recovering the abnormal coefficient is a difficult task.

According to the Guild's research, once a plane begins to shift in an unstable direction, it is destined to be destroyed unless the investigators can find out the root cause. This coincides with the "decay period" concept proposed by the imposter Khadra. However, the plane in which the Empire is located is relatively special. According to the Guild's calculation, it has experienced a cycle of seven civilization destructions.

This is certainly not good news for the natives living on the decaying plane, as it means that no matter how hard they try, they cannot stop the destruction of their homeland.

Ethan didn't know if this was a propaganda strategy by the guild, but at least the data provided by the guild showed that all known self-rescue efforts by "native" organizations had ended in failure, and in all the successful cases, guild investigators were involved.

In response, the instructors at the guild headquarters suggested that each investigator who took on a mission should get as close as possible to the core of that plane, since decay often begins with the corruption of the core. As for the guild's managers, they figured out another, simpler and more brutal method.

The Golden King is the best among them—using golden radiation and golden masks to brainwash every living being in this plane to achieve absolute rule, thus ensuring that the plane is spared from decay. The anomaly coefficient of these planes ruled by the Golden King will be constant at 100%, and as long as the will of the Golden King exists, it will never waver again.

The Crimson Queen recorded the method of modifying the plane's rules in her adventure book. She sealed Argos, who possessed almost endless energy, here, purified his energy, and let it flow into the divine tree, which was the core of the plane. She then made adjustments using one of the discarded drafts she found during her adventure, and finally transformed the tree canopy into its current form.

She also made a special note in the adventure book about the enormous risks involved. Each time the rules needed to be modified, it would consume a huge amount of energy, an energy level that humans could never possess, not even the guild leaders.

Only the "Old Gods" could provide such a large amount of energy. In order to ensure that Argos's energy could flow smoothly, she even used "Ancient Magic" found in the guild to modify Argos. The hoses that Ethan saw in his dream and the giant container storing blue fluorescence were both products of this modification.

Ethan thought that this explained why Argos attacked the Crimson Queen the moment he broke the seal and vowed to bring this world to an end.

Put yourself in their shoes; anyone who was tricked into entering a seal, bound by magic, and squeezed dry for thousands of years would be filled with rage.

For Argos, Crimson was undoubtedly an irreconcilable enemy, and she made no attempt to conceal her actions towards Argos in her adventure book.

Ethan even found the most puzzling aspect of the matter to be that Argos had calmed down so quickly in front of him, and under his persuasion, had stopped being so fixated on destroying the plane.

This only shows that Argos was a magnanimous Old God, and that for some reason, the Old Gods were willing to give him face.

Through the experiments, Ethan gradually came to understand Crimson's experiments.

In gaming terms, it's like she used Argos's energy to grant herself higher-level privileges, giving her almost the same level of authority as "Future Winter" in the "Canopy." This is a level of authority that only the true master of the consciousness space can control, representing endless possibilities. What she can do is far more than just causing the summoner to suddenly go black after a defeat.

It overturns all of humanity's existing knowledge.

It could reverse humanity's concepts of "sky" and "ground," or perhaps...

"Enough, Winter, this is a public place!"

Rowena's scolding interrupted Ethan's thoughts, followed by a tingling sensation in his wrist. Ethan looked down and found that the cat had climbed onto his arm at some point, wrapped its tail around his arm, and buried its face in the wound on his wrist.

She would occasionally lick the wound with her pink tongue.

This caused great distress to Rowena, a single person. Although it is true that animals have the habit of licking each other's wounds, she found this scene somewhat erotic and increasingly suggestive.

The licking process was accompanied by small chewing sounds, which made the onlookers, Bi'an and Miss Chloe, stare in astonishment.

They had no idea what had happened, but the colorful candies peeking out of Ethan's wrist wound looked delicious.

"Old Sen, what's wrong with you? Why are rainbow candies coming out of your wound?"

The black wolfhound stuck out its tongue, its eyes wide open. The cat on its arm buried its head even deeper, blocking the view from the other side with its body. "This is an experiment."

Ethan explained that he tried the content mentioned in the Crimson Adventure Book and further modified the "blackout after defeat" rule. Under the new rules, people in this world do not bleed when injured, nor does it cause any loss of life. Instead, rainbow candies will appear from their wounds: red ones are strawberry flavored, orange ones are orange flavored, and purple ones are grape flavored...

As it turns out, even such bizarre and illogical rules were successfully implemented.

The only difference was that he didn't rely on Argos and Old Ann's energy. After all, this was just a preliminary attempt, and he didn't intend to go too deep down this path. However, things progressed more smoothly than he expected. He activated "administrator privileges" for himself with almost no loss of magic power.

The Divine Tree is the control console of this plane; once the link is established, it can rewrite the rules of this world.

This made Ethan fall into deep thought.

In her adventure book, Crimson mentions that even with Argos as a backup energy source, her first success still took decades—in the world beneath the divine tree, that was the time when Oled I completed his conquest and rule. However, for people today, that history is too distant, so much so that they have forgotten that the earliest people also experienced battles of iron and blood. They would use swords and spears to slaughter their enemies and cut off the heads of their foes to hang on stakes.

"how do you feel?"

Unlike the others whose attention was drawn to the rainbow candies, Old An's voice revealed deep concern.

Argos, who was inside the rift, pressed on, "Are you feeling unwell, such as chest tightness or shortness of breath? Or perhaps your magic is depleted?"

"No."

Ethan's answer caused both Old Gods to fall silent simultaneously.

He asked, puzzled, "What's wrong?"

"Something's not right with you."

The little octopus attached itself to Ethan's other arm, staring into his eyes. After observing him for a while, it took advantage of the cat's attention being diverted to the menacing other side, and quickly used its tentacles to roll up a rainbow candy and put it into its mouth.

Green candies, apple flavored.

The sweet taste made the little octopus squint its eyes into slits; it always loves sweet things.

After pondering it for a moment, it came to the conclusion that, "To be precise, something is very wrong. If we want to rewrite the rules, we will have to pay the corresponding price, and we are no exception."

Ampolis said.

The changes in Argos's image and energy are, in His view, the inevitable result of frequent rule modifications. Even if they are forced, the aftereffects still manifest in Him. This is precisely why they possess power but never use it arbitrarily. The more illogical the changes, the stronger the price to pay.

In His view, the idea that a creature would ooze rainbow candies from its wounds was an absurd modification, and He wouldn't be surprised if Ethan's appearance suddenly transformed into a minotaur or an ogre.

What truly surprised them was that Ethan seemed perfectly normal.

"I understand what you mean."

This is also a mystery for Ethan, and the answer may lie in the cat that is currently feasting on his arm. According to the information revealed in the Crimson Adventure Book, these are all powers belonging to the "future Winter". For Winter, changing the rules should not bring any backlash.

So why did the same thing happen to him?

Could it be... that his close relationship with Winter caused some of his powers to be transferred to him?

Ethan moved his arm so that the cat's face was facing him.

"teacher."

"Ok?"

The cat lazily squinted its eyes.

"Is there anything you want to say?"

The cat looked up at him with its bright red eyes.

After a long while, he finally spoke, "Ethan, it's delicious."

(End of this chapter)