Chapter 151

"We don't know the specifics, but the most common explanation is that a new god has appeared in the desert, that the new god rules the entire desert, and is now preparing to lead the desert people to conquer the rainforest, so this is the reason why war is about to break out."

"Wait, a new god? Aren't there only Seven Archons in Teyvat? How can there be a new god?"

"We don't know the specifics, but this is the most accurate information we have gathered so far."

Katarina explained with a smile.

"All right."

Paimon looked helplessly at Ying beside him.

"What should we do?"

Without commissions, they can't take risks, and without risks, they won't have any income. Should they go find work? But they don't know anyone here. Where can they find work?

"I have an idea."

Ying put her hands on her hips and looked at Paimon.

"Paimon, you should eat less these days."

"Hey, Traveler, how could you do this! Paimon won't be able to fly if he doesn't eat enough!"

"Just kidding."

Ying smiled and shook her head as she saw Paimon's anxious expression.

"Hmph! Is this a joke?"

"However, we do need to find a way to solve the income problem. If there are no risky commissions, we can only find private commissions ourselves, but there should be very few private commissions during wartime."

"If it's a private commission, I happen to have a copy here."

Katarina suddenly spoke up while listening to Paimon and Ying's conversation.

"Hmm? Katarina, you said there's a private commission?"

"That's right, it's not an adventure commission, but a private recruitment commission. Because war is coming soon, a wealthy merchant in Sumeru City wants to recruit some powerful people to be her bodyguards in order to protect his daughter until the war ends."

"Oh? That sounds pretty good. As for strength, the Traveler's power is not to be underestimated!"

"That's right!"

Ying put her hands on her hips again.

"So, would you two like to accept this private commission?"

"We'll take it!"

Although they didn't receive any adventure missions, Luminous and Paimon did take on a long-term private hire mission.

While the two were heading to the wealthy merchant's house, the high-ranking officials of the Akademiya began their special meeting.

The Adventurer's Guild's claim that the desert is preparing to wage war against the rainforest is not false; this news has been confirmed by the Akademiya.

"Dottore, what's the deal with that new god? Don't you have any clues?"

"Yes, Dottore, some scholars in the Akademiya even say that the King Deshret has been resurrected."

"The King Deshret is resurrected? Unfortunately, such a thing is impossible on the Teyvat continent."

In the seat originally reserved for the Grand Sage, the Doctor leaned back in the Grand Sage's chair, answering with a smile.

"Then tell me what's going on! We haven't even created our own gods yet, but a god has appeared in the desert. If this continues, they'll attack us, and then Sumeru will be ruled by those barbaric desert people and will no longer be a land of wisdom!"

The sages strongly resisted being ruled by the desert people. Although there were many desert people in their Akademiya, they were generally looked down upon here.

Instead of answering the sages' questions, the Doctor changed the subject.

"I need to tell you something: the King Deshret, the god of the desert, was not some barbaric being. The wisdom he possessed far surpassed that of your Akademiya."

"We do know about the King Deshret's technology, and we are still trying to decipher those special technological products. But that has nothing to do with the current situation. The current situation is that the desert people are preparing to attack the rainforest, and we in the rainforest cannot accept this situation."

"Can't accept this situation? Then just complete the task I assigned you properly and hurry up and give birth to your god, shall we?"

"But is there enough time? We don't have enough Divine Knowledge Capsule to bring about the birth of a god."

"If you don't have enough Divine Knowledge Capsule, then just find enough. Do you really need me to teach you this kind of thing?"

The Doctor looked at the sages in front of him with disdain. They were supposed to be sages from various schools of thought, but when it came to this kind of thing, they were basically useless. In the end, they were just a bunch of rigid people.

"But that will take time. Dottore then, can you hold off that desert god?"

"And to be honest, where did that desert god come from, and why have I never heard of him before?"

"Those Fatui that returned from the desert said that the new god is named Aizen Sousuke, but that sounds like Inazuma's name. Doesn't Inazuma have a thunder god? Why is this Inazuma becoming a god, and why has he come to our Sumeru desert?"

"To be honest, I'm also very curious about this god from Inazuma."

Finally, when the conversation turned to a topic that interested him, Dottore became a little more interested.

"And you don't need to worry. When I received the news, I had already sent people to the desert to gather information. After all, I am very interested in every god who was born after the existence of the Seven Archons."

"That's right, I'm very interested too."

The second sentence was also spoken by the "The Doctor," but this "The Doctor" was younger than the one in the Akademiya. This was a glimpse of the "The Doctor" in his younger days, and he was currently in Caravan Ribat, preparing to head to the desert to investigate!

254. There are no enemies ahead of us.

The Doctor wanted to find Li Yue, but naturally wouldn't send the slide from his prime. Instead, he sent a younger slide, whose abilities were weaker, so it wouldn't matter if he died.

That's right, for the Doctor, his biopsy slides were something he could sacrifice at will.

After making some preparations at Caravan Ribat, the Doctor entered the desert alone. Because the tribes in the desert were about to wage war against the rainforest, Caravan Ribat was not peaceful. The soldiers defending Caravan Ribat were actually members of the Fatui, and most of the members of the Fatui were desert people. Very few people from Yulin joined the Fatui.

As desert people, they had various ideas after learning that all the desert tribes had been unified and, under the leadership of a new god, wanted to attack the rainforest.

There's no way around it; the rainforest people have been discriminating against the desert people for far too long. As a result, the rainforest people make a fortune in Sumeru City and Port Ormos, while the desert people can only be mercenaries. The desert can't grow any food, so they can't develop agriculture and can only be mercenaries.

Now, the desert has its own god and has unified most of the desert tribes. If the desert were to attack and conquer the rainforest, the status of the desert people would rise dramatically, and they would become wealthy.

Therefore, some of the Fatui stationed at Caravan Ribat were considering whether they should surrender and help open the gate when the desert army arrived.

Although there is no gate at the exit of Caravan Ribat leading to the desert, a huge wooden gate has been hastily built in an attempt to isolate the desert. Although it seems somewhat self-deceptive, this temporary gate does provide some psychological comfort to Caravan Ribat.

As for why these Fatui did not directly join the desert tribes, it was because after the Akademiya learned that the desert tribes had unified and were preparing to wage war against the rainforest, they immediately dispatched Disciplinary Officer and Thirty-Three Group to Caravan Ribat Station. After all, this was the first line of defense between the rainforest and the desert. If the desert people wanted to invade the rainforest, they had to enter from here, and an effective defense had to be carried out here.

It was thanks to the existence of the Thirty-Three Group Disciplinary Officer that these Fatui did not directly rebel, but whether they could hold out when the desert army arrived was unknown.

After departing from Kavan, the Doctor first arrived at Aaru Village, but he did not stop there. He crossed Aaru Village directly and entered the vast desert.

The desert is vast and flat, with only one sand dune formed by sand blown by the wind. These dunes constantly change the terrain as the wind blows away the yellow sand, but the overall situation is still relatively flat.

Amidst these ever-overlapping sand dunes, the massive Tomb of King Deshret stands out prominently—a magnificent relic left behind by the once most powerful King Deshret in the desert.

Not far from the magnificent Tomb of King Deshret, a huge domed palace stands out even more because it is grayish- Tomb of King Deshret. The Tomb of King Deshret is at least reddish-yellow like the desert, but the palace is a very cold grayish-white.

"That must be Las Noches. It's really amazing. When I came to the desert last time, I didn't see such a magnificent building. Moreover, according to the task force's intelligence, they had never heard of such a thing before. It was really built in just one night."

The Doctor gazed at the gray-white Las Noches in the distance and couldn't help but sigh.

"Such power is beyond human capabilities, which means that Lord Aizen is truly a god?"

The Doctor acknowledged that Aizen was a god, but he did not acknowledge that Aizen was a born god.

"Interesting. Besides me, someone else has created a new god through a method I don't know about. I must see for myself how this new god was created."

If Aizen were a god long ago, he could have stepped forward long ago. To be precise, after the disaster in Cainrea 500 years ago, the principles of Heavenly Principles disappeared, and the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles are dying and have no way to manage things on Earth. That's why the Seven Nations on Earth dare to act so recklessly, especially Snezhnaya.

Aizen, this god, is clearly a recent figure.

Especially after the Dendro Archon disappeared.

The Doctor knew the Dendro Archon. He was a Sumeru person, although he had been expelled from Sumeru a long time ago. However, he was still aware of some of the sordid things that happened within Sumeru, such as the Grand Sage imprisoning the Dendro Archon. Ordinary scholars certainly wouldn't know such inside stories, but the sages were generally aware of them.

The Doctor's collaborator was the Grand Sage, so he naturally understood, especially after Nahida left Sumeru. The Doctor immediately received the news and was also very curious as to why the Dendro Archon, who had been imprisoned for 500 years, had left.

But he soon discovered the whereabouts of the Dendro Archon. This Dendro Archon had nothing to do, so he went to Liyue and became a high-ranking member of Liyue. This change left the Doctor full of questions. What does it mean? As the god of Sumeru, you just don't want Sumeru anymore?

And Aizen appeared shortly after that.

It's too much of a coincidence that after the Dendro Archon of Sumeru left Sumeru, a new god was born in Sumeru.

It's not that a new Dendro Archon will be born after the Dendro Archon leaves. In the Doctor's opinion, it's Sumeru that there are other people who also know the Dendro Archon and discovered that after the Dendro Archon settled in Liyue, he created Aizen, a new god, to fill the vacancy of the god's position.

"How could I not participate in such a blasphemous experiment? I really want to study this god named Aizen properly."

He disregarded even the gods, treating them merely as research material; this was the second seat of the Fatui, the Doctor.

With this thought in mind, the Doctor set foot on the yellow sand and headed towards Las Noches.

While the Doctor was heading to Las Noches, inside Hueco Mundo, the desert people's army had already assembled. At Li Yue's request, all the strong warriors from various tribes gathered in the central square of Las Noches.

Aside from the elderly and children of the tribe, almost all the young warriors are gathered here. Desert mercenaries are warriors regardless of gender, so the number of warriors gathered here has reached tens of thousands. After all, not many people can live to old age in a desert tribe.

Li Yue stood on the roof of the central palace, looking down at the tens of thousands of troops gathered below, and slightly raised his right hand.

"Lord Aizen!!"

"Lord Aizen!!"

The mercenaries all began to cheer.

Li Yue nodded in satisfaction, then pressed down with her right hand, and the mercenaries immediately quieted down.

"Gentlemen, do you remember my promise to lead you to conquer the rainforest?"

"Remember!"

"Very good, remember that, for I am about to lead you to fulfill this promise!"

"The desert has been dormant for too long, so long that the rainforest dwellers have forgotten the glory the desert once possessed!"

"So, today is the day we set off to conquer the rainforest!"

"Oh!!!"

"Follow me and conquer the rainforest together! We are invincible!"

255. The Doctor: There are actually people smarter than me?

The army is setting off!

After Li Yue said a few words, the mercenary army began to move. In order to ensure efficiency, Li Yue did not bring the entire army. He only brought the most elite part, which numbered just over 10,000. This number of 10,000 troops was enough for him, especially in the task of conquering the rainforest.

The 10,000-strong army left the Las Noches and headed directly towards Caravan Ribat.

The departure of such a large army is similar to when they became a major tribe and went to annex the Tanit tribe. However, this time, there are no tribes from the entire desert coming to watch, because the desert tribes have now basically become part of Las Noches.

The massive army marched forward through the yellow sand, quickly attracting the attention of the Doctor, who happened to be heading to Las Noches.

He knew the desert was going to attack the rainforest, but he didn't expect the timing to be so coincidental; he arrived just as the army was setting off.

He didn't do anything to stop the army. After all, with his current state, he wasn't capable of going against the gods. He wasn't stupid enough to do something that would surely lead to his death.

He avoided the army's route of advance, hiding behind a nearby sand dune, and then secretly observed the army, especially the front of the army.

Of the three men at the forefront of the army, he recognized two: one was the former Grand Disciplinary Officer of the Akademiya, now a wanted criminal Cyno; the other was the former Secretary of the Akademiya, also now a wanted criminal, Alhaitham.

"These two are actually in league with this new god. Could it be that they participated in this experiment to create a god?"

The Doctor recalled the intelligence he had received: Cyno and Alhaitham had infiltrated the Grand Sage's office, killed the Grand Sage, and then disappeared. Now, these two who had disappeared were in the desert, even next to this new god.

"It seems these two are hiding their true colors very well."

After a brief moment of thought, the Doctor deduced that Cyno and Alhaitham were either desert people or their accomplices from the very beginning. They were infiltrating the Akademiya, one as a scribe and the other as Grand Disciplinary Officer. Neither of these positions seemed to be research-oriented, but in reality, both positions were extremely important.

Because the clerks have access to almost all of the Akademiya's paper documents, they have a very high level of control over the information within the Akademiya. The Grand Disciplinary Officer is responsible for supervising the research of all the scholars within the Akademiya and preventing them from conducting research that violates discipline.

These are the surface-level jobs of these two positions, but from the opposite perspective, the clerk is also the one most likely to come into contact with those conducting illegal research, while the Grand Disciplinary Officer is the one who directly confronts scholars conducting illegal research.

Within the Akademiya, what constitutes illegal research? Naturally, it refers to research topics that deviate from established doctrines, such as the creation of gods!

"The clerk is responsible for finding clues and information from the documents and then handing them over to the Grand Disciplinary Officer. Then, the Grand Disciplinary Officer, Cyno, arrests the so-called scholars who have violated discipline. This is a perfectly normal thing for the Akademiya. However, when the Grand Disciplinary Officer arrests scholars, he can easily transfer those scholars."

These two are a perfect match.

They can use this method to arrest people to help them with any research topic they want to study. The clerk can tell who is more capable just by looking at the data, and the Grand Disciplinary Officer can arrest people based on the data provided by the clerk. After arresting someone, they can send them to the Jail or to the desert for secret research.

"Therefore, Cyno and Alhaitham must have started their research on creating gods a long time ago."

The Doctor couldn't help but laugh.

"I never expected that, besides me, there would be someone else who wants to study the creation of gods today, and even acted on it before me."

"In this way, Azar's death can be explained."