Afterword: Wood Plack's Parchment Letter
By the time you see this letter, it should be about two weeks later. My most admired and respected BOSS, my Lord of the Nine Realms, my terrifying beast, my kind and lovely boss.
I am your loyal and courageous advisor, your Redstone Train Captain, I am Wood Plark.
After turning the title page, you can see the specific format of this letter. Although it is made of waterproof ink, it is still susceptible to erosion from salt and sea breeze. In order to send it back to you intact, my handwriting will be a bit more casual.
After all, this is not like before. When I used to write work reports on my laptop, I would write three words and then change one.
If this letter were written like a work report, it's likely it would never reach you.
Table of contents:
1. Questions regarding personnel scheduling within the Engineering and Construction Department.
2. Regarding pest control issues on the warband's logistics supply lines.
3. Questions concerning the work of the Politburo in the context of a state of emergency.
4. Negotiations concerning the diplomacy of the Hongfa Temple of the Great Xia.
5. Questions regarding the Madness Butterfly religious activities in Eureka Volcano City.
6. Strategic plans regarding whether to combat corruption or terrorism in Eureka Volcano City.
7. Marshal Krozo's personal letter: Six key points to note in the event of localized military conflicts.
8. The Holy Grail, the Dagda's Cauldron, and three feathers.
9. Frontline Secretary: Interrogation of Wood Plark and Wang Damin.
10. The Origins of Time Travelers | The Terrifying Sun of Shambhala.
11. Frontline Secretary: Interview with the investigation into the Immortal Embryo and the interrogation of the Old Di Jiang.
12. A message from Wood Plark to you.
<Questions regarding personnel scheduling within the Engineering and Construction Department>
BOSS, we have captured two major cities in the southeastern war zone of Shambhala, just as predicted in the initial battle plan—a surprise attack without warning, a decapitation strike, and an act of war.
As the think tank and Senate generals predicted, this process will generate many problems.
In the long run, the biggest problem is the shortage of manpower. Xiantai Prefecture is still in Liu Zhen's hands, and we cannot completely seize power in this ancient port with a team of a thousand people. This would lead to many awkward situations where we are not used to the local conditions.
In the short term, the biggest problem is the traffic congestion caused by the shortage of manpower.
If you have time, you can continue reading. If you don't have time, you can skip to the seventh parchment scroll and listen to the summary written by Keshua.
From the eastern continent of Shambhala, in the southeastern region, to the Copper River basin, the best mode of transportation is river transport. We have the most skilled team of craftsmen in the Nine Realms; they can build ships and construct ports and docks. Even in the mountains and forests, maintaining discipline with zero members falling behind, we can still achieve a marching speed of forty kilometers per day.
The quality of this army was unimaginable to the warlords and generals of Shambhala, even though they possessed thousands of acres of fertile land, pastures, stables, and a well-established military merit system. They held both carrot and stick in their hands, fattening up their officers and soldiers and forcing these lapdogs to kneel compliantly—yet they still could not compare to this mighty and mighty army.
Here I will explain in detail why manpower shortages lead to traffic congestion.
The waterways and transportation in the southeastern part of the Great Xia are extremely complex. There are also many nameless villages and towns hidden in the remote mountains. The statistical units need people, the engineering construction needs people, the raw materials need people, the port garrison needs people, the supply stations need people, the transportation teams need people, the dangerous goods management needs people, the miscellaneous rationing needs people, the grain, oil and tobacco needs people, the water diversion navigation and mapping needs people, the basic wind power and thermal power small equipment needs people, and so on. All of these require personnel support.
To gain a foothold in Shambhala, they had to control the Copper River; the soldiers couldn't possibly march the entire 700-kilometer front line step by step.
When the canal network is completed, the political bureau of the Nine Realms can be built in Xiantai Prefecture.
5. <Questions regarding the Madness Butterfly Religious Activities in Eureka Volcano City>
After news of the gunsmith's death spread throughout all the administrative districts, Judas had been secretly probing, attempting to infiltrate the city management system of Eureka Volcano City through numerous intermediaries.
This infiltration activity can be traced back to four months ago; the brothers of the Gate of Wonders and Quickblade had already noticed the unusual activity in Volcano City.
It has six sewage and drainage systems, three of which are old and unmanaged. These were temporary projects built in the early days of the city's construction. In these shacks and complex pipe systems, many mixed races and humans also hid, using the secluded dwellings to set up private strongholds and establish secret societies.
The Gate of Wonders obtained much useful information from these scattered gangs and secret societies, among which I have listed the more key names below.
The thirty-three members of the Redstone Senate: Raphael Dagon, his eldest son, and his fourth son, are confirmed to be the trading partners of the True God Society.
The eighth seat of the Redstone Senate: Lord Honduras once mentioned the True God Society in a public interview, and his stance was not firm enough, maintaining a neutral opinion of neither supporting nor opposing this new church.
Yellowstone Senate, 54th seat: This is a newly elected senator, very new, named Hailar, who changed her surname to Barry after her husband.
After receiving the information about Quickblade, Silver Bay and the Nameless One used the gunsmith's knightly combat techniques to further screen and judge the case—based on three dimensions: financial transactions, physiological needs, and spiritual interests.
In Hailar's personal financial records over the past three months, 82% of the Hui Stone Currency have gone missing. Her monthly salary is 16,000, and aside from living expenses, it's likely that, like the character profile of Quickblade, she is already a member of the True God Society, using fundraising to lead an uprising and laundering money for profit.
In addition to these senators, there is a long list of related entities involved, such as accounting firms that handled the affairs and law firms that integrated legal services, which will be compiled and listed in the appendix.
My boss, all signs indicate that Judas has indeed taken the bait—
He believed that with the gunsmith dead, he had enough power to slowly return to Eureka and send the Wings of Light and the Vita Imprint back to our administrative district.
This is a good thing. The specific handling methods are written in "Strategic Plan Regarding Anti-Corruption or Anti-Terrorism in Eureka Volcano City". For the Nameless Ones, this is a good opportunity to train their troops. The armament system centered on the Moon God Cup can now play its role perfectly. Having learned knightly combat skills, the children who usually only fire bullets can now don armor and take up the baton from the gunsmith.
The Holy Grail, the Dagda's Cauldron, and the Three Feathers
Boss, the following information is very important. By the time you get to this point, I have already handed the letter to David Victor, and this translator will handle the translation.
The Dagda's Cauldron requires thirty Celestial Embryos to complete the infusion ritual, and each Celestial Embryo requires thousands of lives to nourish it, far exceeding the primordial abundance of ordinary King of Fire —for example, even a more powerful Nest Lord like Maddes devoured fewer than two thousand souls.
With over 30,000 lives lost, what can these elemental particles accomplish? What can they achieve through the Dagda's Cauldron, this psionic amplifier?
Ming De, my dear BOSS.
I simply cannot imagine it, I simply cannot fathom Judas's heart.
Even I, David Victor, who tried to emulate Judas's thinking using experiential writing techniques and by imitating the enemy's thought process through various clues, still couldn't come up with it.
I know far too little about his life. If I could get close to him, or indirectly touch the people or things around him via the Hell Highway, perhaps I could learn more.
My student has killed the governor of Taiye Prefecture, and from this Wings of Light, we have learned a new phrase— Judas has three [feathers], which are his protective charms.
The gunsmith was extremely vigilant and wouldn't tolerate any tricks from the enemy. He killed the Wings of Light before the enemy could surrender and confess. But it didn't matter; the True God Cult, which was frequently active in Eureka Volcano City, provided us with more clues, filling in this piece of the puzzle.
This is also thanks to the smokescreen of [REMIX] – Judas wants to return to Eureka, and his first step must be the safest and most conservative.
He will inevitably select the most trusted and important Immortals in the team to carry out this infiltration.
Among the credible information currently available to the anonymous individual is a vague description of three feathers, which are --
--The Weaver of Fate | Fay Foroisin.
--Audience member: Verno Carter.
--Croupier | Frem Vervier
These English names and prefixes might confuse you, so a simple, straightforward translation will be easier to remember.
Fay·Forosery | Dedicated to my Rose Fairy
Final Caught | Seize the Last Moment of the Finale
Flame·ForeverThe eternal fire of hell
The Immortals have long since sealed away their true names; they either forget them or simply do not wish to recall their past, lest these memories become their inner demons and weaknesses.
These three letters starting with F and two surnames starting with F form a stable and solid pentagram structure.
Besides their names, the Nameless Ones' intelligence network also learned about their honorific titles from the True God Cult in Eureka Volcano City. Perhaps these honorific titles are the embodiment of the Immortals' soul power, their special abilities.
Based on the alliance members who have already been dealt with --
--Pellegrini Touan's prefix is Stormhawk.
George Joshua's original prefix was "The Suffocator," but after his defeat by the War King, it was changed to "The Red-Maned Lion."
--The prefix for Kim Taekang is "canary," which is a miner's partner. When a crisis comes, the canary will die in the oxygen-deprived mine tunnels before the miners do.
The old mages of the Arcane Library used a series of psychic rituals and radar-based waveform filtering to deduce the characteristics of psychic tidal forces. They then used a method involving more than 300 psychics connecting their spirits to construct a complex psychic phased array network to search for powerful psychic beings. Not long ago, during the gunsmith's sword-forging journey, the 1773 Research Institute used this psychic radar to find the psychic waveform of a suspected Immortals.
He should be Jody, a fictional character who only appears in some unofficial historical accounts.
If he is also Immortals, then his prefix should be John'D | the unnamed male protagonist.
In addition to Wang Damin, who was recently captured, this leader of the Yin Yang Qian Kun sect also has a pseudonym called Kunwu. The meaning of this pseudonym is that he was the eldest son of Lu Zhong, the great-grandson of Zhuanxu, and the inventor of ancient pottery manufacturing.
Judas viewed this Immortals as a business manager. In Judas's eyes, Kunwu's commercial value far exceeded his spiritual value—hence the name.
<The Origins of the Time Travelers | The Terrifying Sun of Shambhala>
Now hand the pen back to me, Boss.
--There's something you already knew a long time ago.
Wood Plark is a time traveler, a time-traveler.
I come from another universe. I traveled through time in 1986 and returned to the universe FE33031, several hundred years ago.
At first, I didn't know why this happened. Was there any scientific reason? Was it fate?
I've spent my whole life studying three ultimate questions: Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going?
These are also three ultimate questions that humanity itself needs to figure out.
--In the battle against FE204863, I gradually felt that psionic energy is the key to unlocking the fifth dimension. It seems that psionic energy can achieve things like exceeding the speed of light and controlling curvature.
Before interrogating Wang Damin, I had encountered many other time travelers in Shambhala.
Just as you imagined—these two lands, far removed from the mundane world, seem to possess a powerful spiritual force that constantly generates intense spacetime disturbances, continuously sending unfamiliar travelers from other parallel universes here.
If we were to pinpoint a timeframe, travelers would arrive here approximately every forty or fifty years, much like the harvest season. I've seen many family businesses that, if you trace their history back hundreds or even thousands of years, still manage to master some relatively simple modern crafts—skills alone are enough to allow penniless time travelers to quickly amass wealth, then recruit soldiers and engage in cannibalism.
When I was young, probably only in my twenties or thirties, even after all this time, I still remember the customs and traditions of Amitlan on the West Coast—listening to the locals speak both Chinese and English, at that time I felt only fear.
I would ponder why this strange continent felt so familiar, why I could understand every word of their language, yet their actions resembled those of bloodthirsty beasts.
Modern languages themselves have undergone hundreds or thousands of years of evolution. Starting from language, I was convinced at the time that I was not alone, that I had not traveled from another time, but that Shambhala possessed a kind of Magic Power that had found me—every so often, it would summon travelers from another time and space to descend upon this wild continent. They would use their vision far beyond their time and their technology beyond the current historical context to rule with their own language and slowly change the world.
That's why, when I came to this land, I heard the modern language that I was familiar with.
Once I started researching this psychic phenomenon, I couldn't stop. I spent nearly two hundred years immersing myself in the local religions, folk customs, rituals, magic, psychic powers, spells, and so on in Shambhala. All my research results were submitted to the 1773 Arcane Library, and I only have a very vague conjecture.
About the Sun of Shambhala --
Its heat is extraordinary, more powerful than any Lord of Cinder recorded in the railway system.
In the western continent of Amitlan, it has two sides: it is both Amon, the goddess of fertility who cares for the grain, and the god of war and Death God, the ram-headed god who burns with fire, called Baphomet devil.
I read the Lennon Chronicle, the Amitlan Chronicle, and even went to the National Geographic Library in the City of Dragon's Nest, where I discovered some intriguing clues, including a deity born before Ceres and Death God.
She is a moon goddess, the goddess of life in the western continent of Amitlan, and the mother of all life—her name is Io.
Legend has it that in ancient times, before it was called Amitlan, Mitran, Amitlan Mitran...
The continent of Mitran is ravaged by demons and war. Man-eating monsters disguise themselves as humans and spread plague and famine throughout the world.
Mitran has no sun, only a gentle moon. Her light is too weak; she cannot even kill any monsters. She can only weep silently, watching helplessly as the people of Mitran suffer.
One year, the earth cracked open, and countless bright red tentacles emerged from the ground. They swept away livestock, seized the old, weak, women, and children, and any living creature they touched would die painfully and slowly, gradually turning into a ball of fiery red flames—from which bright red butterflies would fly out.
The monster grew stronger and stronger, and it wanted to reach its tentacles towards the Goddess Aio in the sky and devour the moon as well.
The Goddess Aio was captured by demons from the earth, and the moon gradually turned into a blood moon.
She could not give up, so she summoned a warrior.
The warrior repeatedly performed extraordinary feats in the annals of Mitran. He was not only a powerful warrior but also a shrewd strategist, skilled in magic and medicine, and capable of quelling disasters on rivers and land.
Half of the Annals of Mitran is devoted to praising this great emperor, Mitran I, the founder of civilization in the Western Continent, who drove away demons from this barbaric hell.
By now, you've probably guessed the correct answer.
The Goddess Aio's original form was likely that of an ogre.
She didn't have enough power to maintain the fusion reaction in the King of Fire form; perhaps she was dying and about to extinguish—but she possessed a special kind of spiritual energy, perhaps her soul power.
This special ability is a type of summoning ritual, and Mitran I was not a chosen one summoned by a goddess.
He's the same as me --
--They are all time travelers.
Later myths and legends changed along with Io's form; she became Baphomet, and then the goddess of fertility Amon.
She is the devil who has been holding me tightly, the slave owner who will never let me go.
My Soul Power is a contract of servitude. It prevents me from aging and gives me the superpower of being unable to die every Saturday. Even if I am turned into a human flesh bento and given to cannibals to eat, I can still come back to life completely and find my whole body again from a pile of dung.
This sun devours people all the time. As for how it does it do so? -- It needs to kill, it needs to quickly replace weak lives. Time travelers from other universes are the best elixir. In order to gain power, they will always take the path of cannibalism and killing.
The gunsmith held a private ceremony to comfort Zhao Jianying's spirit, but it failed, just like before. I have also lost important comrades-in-arms. I want to use a medium, through methods such as summoning spirits, comforting spirits, informing spirits, and calling spirits, to wake up these dead souls. I want to talk to them, write them letters, and ask them how they are doing. At least I can leave a memento and have some hope.
I want to preserve this tenderness, to let this friendship exist within the medium's props, so that Death God won't take them away so quickly.
But this land will not allow it.
In areas with high concentrations of Spirit Calamity in various administrative regions, ghosts are frequently encountered. These free spirits can even actively seek out relatives still living in the human world and can cause trouble with impunity.
But the spirit of Shambhala is fleeting; it can vanish in an instant, disappearing into the world— Death God comes so quickly.
I believe it was the Goddess Aio who took them away. Like the Original Seed, she found a more advanced and efficient way of growing than the Blood-giving Monster or the Immortals, and has already embarked on the path to godhood. She wants to transform into another form, possessing unbelievable feeding efficiency. Shambhala becoming a terrifying abyss is perhaps more than half the credit that can be given to the Goddess Aio.
I will tear off the life contract on my body sooner or later, and I will not regret it even if I lose this divine power and die.