From the God of Lies to the Lord of All Worlds

Chapter 172 Gao's Brainstorming

"According to our intelligence, among these people last night, apart from two named Olafell and Torre who did not engage in any transactions, the rest of them all failed to uphold the bottom line and completed one or two special 'treasure transactions'!"

After getting off the bus, Austin continued to tell Gao about the information they had.

"Selling them? They're in such a hurry to get money?" Gao asked curiously. "They've exchanged everyone? That means they got our people too?"

“Yes!” Austin nodded. “Yes, our people also got a piece of jewelry. According to our investigation, the others have also received those items and are waiting for us to examine them!”

“Something’s not right…” Gao frowned, as if he saw a similar scene flashing through his mind, and his palms were getting hotter and hotter!

"What's wrong?" Austin asked curiously. "Boss, do you think there's something wrong with this?"

“It’s not just a problem, it’s a huge problem!” Gao said, looking at the hotel in front of him. He didn’t rush in, but stopped and faced Austin, saying slowly, “Let’s re-examine the sequence of events in this story!”

“But they’ve all gone in. If we don’t go, wouldn’t we be…” Austin said anxiously, “We’ll be far behind, and the President might blame us…”

Gao, however, remained resolute in his decision. "Yes, that's it. We won't go yet! We'll wait!"

Gao tapped his temple as the information entered his mind bit by bit, then transformed back into a long line of thought, flashing through his mind at the speed of light!
"Austin, bring me your tablet!" Gao said, his mind gradually clearing, and he began to understand the various aspects of the matter. He took the tablet from Austin and quickly started planning on it!

“Yesterday, they discovered a ruin containing elves, dwarves, and dragons, but they were all dead, yet they still left behind a gift!”

"These gifts belong to extraordinary individuals, which are now known as extraordinary items!"

"Besides them, there were two other people who also took something: a history book from a geology professor named Torre Eric, and the geology doctor named Olafur Thorsen, who took his ancestor's relics, the armor and sword of the dragon slayer named Sigurd, right?"

Austin nodded slowly. "Yes, boss, no problem!"

“Then let’s continue!” Gao continued to extend the narrative, “The reason they were able to take these things is because those two told them they could take them before they went to the underworld on Yggdrasil, isn’t that right?”

"Right!"

"Did the narrator specifically say what those two said? Did they tell them to take them all, or did they say there was no limit to the number each person could choose?" Gao asked the core question. "Or was it like those heroes' epics, where you could only take one or three?"

“He didn’t say!” Austin immediately understood. “We asked him the same question, and his explanation was that the other party hadn’t explained it in detail! So they each took quite a lot of things and left.”

Gao scoffed, "Didn't you explain it in detail? Then why did the most learned professor only take one book?"

"There was no detailed explanation as to why Olaviel, a descendant of the dragon slayer and with the most powerful background, only took what he was entitled to?"

"Do they look down on it, or are they afraid to take it? Or is there some taboo surrounding it?"

Gao asked three questions in a row, which quickly cooled Austin's somewhat excited mood!
"You mean... he's lying? Or did they take more than they were supposed to?"

Gao rubbed his temples, continuing his speculation: "At the very least, he wasn't telling the truth!"

Austin was still trying to understand, "He didn't tell the truth, so he sold us what he had? Hmm... that doesn't make sense, does it?"

He felt that something was wrong with this whole thing, but what exactly was wrong?
Gao suddenly asked Austin a question, "If you were them, when you got these extraordinary items, would you want to hide them, or would you be eager to sell them?"

"Of course I'd hide it! How could I just sell things to anyone? I'd at least keep the best for myself, right?"

Austin casually remarked, "This is, after all, extraordinary..." He suddenly stopped speaking, instead taking a sharp breath, "You mean, it's not that they want to sell, but that they can't hold onto it, right?"

"Go check how many other people took these things!" Gao's mind raced, and he even took a hard candy out of his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it. "I think it's probably not just us who got these extraordinary items!"

He looked up at the hotel in front of him, a strange light in his eyes. "Or rather, investigate how many forces entered and exited this hotel last night!"

"Our military base is on this island. After receiving orders last night, they launched drones to monitor the area. I think it shouldn't take long to summarize this matter!"

Austin immediately passed the order down, and a few minutes later, the message arrived!
"Boss, a total of seventeen different forces entered the hotel, and then left in a hurry..." Austin looked at his boss with a look of amazement. How could he analyze that? No wonder he is the deputy director of America's Special Affairs Bureau, a true master of power!
Gao roughly realized what was going on, "In other words, there are a total of seventeen forces that have obtained extraordinary items. Adding the people from the hotel, including the students and teachers, there are nine more people, which makes a total of twenty-six!"

"Twenty-six...twenty-six..."

He continued muttering about the number, "No, no... it's not twenty-six, it's not twenty-six..."

Gao continued, asking Austin, "Did they say anything else, like the structure of the cave, or the writing, symbols, or descriptions on it?"

“Word symbols and descriptions?” Austin frowned. “The cave was concealed by runes, and the runes disappeared after they left! The wall and the cave also disappeared, doesn’t that count?”

"Yes! Why not?" Gao immediately started searching for runes using OpenAI, wanting to see if there was anything that matched his guess:
“The ancient Fursak script has twenty-four letters, representing three Ete: Freya, Ete, and Heimdall…” The AI’s dull voice rang in Gao’s ears, causing his previously frozen brain to explode like a thunderbolt!

"Yes, it's twenty-four, not twenty-six!" he shouted. "Torre and Olafel, one took books, and the other took ancestral relics! Neither of them really took anything!"

"So, that's right, it's twenty-four! Twenty-four runes. They each took twenty-four items and then distributed them to twenty-four different people!"

[Twenty-four Runes (Ancient Fursak)]

Austin looked at his boss and felt only estrangement. His boss seemed like a monster. How could he deduce so much from so little information? Was it reasonable?

"So, boss, what should we do now?"

"What do we do?" Gao stared at the hotel, a cold laugh escaping his lips. "The most important thing for us right now is to get out of here as quickly as possible and then go and call in reinforcements! Call the people from the Keflavik base over, otherwise this place might turn into hell!"

"Hell?" Austin looked at the hotel in front of him, puzzled, and couldn't quite understand what this had to do with hell.

"In Norse mythology, the complete rune originates from Odin's hanging upside down. He was suspended from a tree for nine days and nine nights, completing his self-sacrifice!"

"In Norse mythology, every benefit comes at a price. So Loki sacrificed everything to bring about Ragnarok, Odin gave up one of his eyes for wisdom, and the gods have also paid a heavy price for certain things!"

"They took a total of twenty-four items, extraordinary artifacts containing twenty-four runes, without permission!"

"So Austin, what do you think the cost of doing this would be?"

At that very moment, a terrifying roar suddenly resounded from inside the hotel!

"Boom!"

Gao lunged forward like a madman, staring intently at the hotel before him. He clutched the cross he had obtained from Princess Caroline, the "Saintess," before leaving America, and felt a cold sweat pouring down his face.

He recalled the scene that had unfolded at Lincoln's tomb that day, that similar crisis still vivid in his mind!

(End of this chapter)