Chapter 30

Sitting in a safe place and watching a despicable villain scheme and scurry about is truly a novel experience.

However, neither Gerald nor Palin are qualified to be good spectators.

Gerald grew sleepy after watching for a while; for a big guy like him, standing hunched over inside a cave was indeed very uncomfortable, and not long after sitting on the ground, he began to doze off.

Palin, on the other hand, was watching with keen interest, but his complexion soon began to turn pale, and the vitality in his body gradually dimmed, looking sickly and on the verge of death.

"It's such a hassle without a soul!" Sui Xiong muttered to himself, supplementing his life force with another surge of magic.

As time slowly passed, every move Ryan made was reflected on the screen. Things he thought were secret were seen clearly by Palin.

It turned out he was the guild master of the Glimmerstone Town Thieves Guild. The reason he disguised himself as a down-and-out old thief was specifically to ambush Gerald. This wasn't to seize the holy relic housing the god's will, but simply to please the god he worshipped.

He did not worship the God of Thieves, but the God of Conspiracy. That deity was keen on having followers use conspiracies and framing tactics to achieve their goals; He despised simple violence and honest communication. Only through underhanded schemes could one bring Him joy.

Ryan was the guild master of the Thieves Guild. Although this guild master only ruled over the Thieves Guild of a mere Glimmerstone Town—insignificant to the world at large—attaining such power and status was the result of decades of struggle, using all his strength and wisdom through countless conspiracies and bloodshed.

In his life, he had used conspiracies more often than he had shed blood, so he truly enjoyed using them. This made him a loyal follower of the God of Conspiracy, even blaspheming the glory of the God of Thieves more than once for it.

All of this was rewarded, earning him recognition from his god more than once, granting him power and status beyond his own talents, and allowing him to firmly suppress the vice-guild master, whose talents were far superior to his own.

But all of that meant little to him now.

A few days ago, after using a scheme to wipe out a gang of bandits who had long refused to sell their stolen goods to the Thieves Guild at a low price, Ryan saw an elderly man nearing the end of his life in the reflection of his wine glass while celebrating.

At that very moment, he had a sudden realization: his life was coming to an end.

When he grasped this, power, status, money... everything paled in comparison, and his every thought was occupied by one single thing.

He had to go to the Divine Kingdom of the God of Conspiracy; he absolutely must not go to the Underworld!

Given his character, going to the Underworld would likely mean falling straight into Purgatory, where he would endure countless tortures one by one—perhaps twice or three times over—welcomed by those devils who always smiled while looking up at the sky, waiting for villains to come and be punished. The devils certainly wouldn't let him off easy. If his soul could survive the torture, it would then be completely crushed and scattered into the River Styx, reorganized into a new soul along with other soul particles, with no possibility of reincarnating alone ever again...

He absolutely did not want such an outcome!

So, he hurriedly prayed to the God of Conspiracy, begging for the qualification to enter the Divine Kingdom after death. But the God of Conspiracy did not grant him permission directly; instead, He told him to do something that would please Him in exchange for the qualification.

After careful consideration, Ryan decided to use a conspiracy to kill the giant who possessed the holy relic, believing this would surely be enough to please the God of Conspiracy. To this end, he used up a valuable favor to forge his credentials at the Gold Rush Town Adventurers Guild and brought in a large number of people who didn't know him to pose as adventurers there.

He prepared very carefully; during the process of gaining trust, not a single person involved told a single lie.

He had indeed been an adventurer once, had indeed left the trade about twenty years ago, and he did indeed have a son who loved to gamble—he even specifically arranged for his son to lose a sum of money at a casino, then be detained there until he came to pay the ransom. And he truly could not come up with that much money—because he had temporarily transferred his funds to someone else.

Everything, every single thing, was to deceive a god capable of detecting lies.

In the end, he succeeded.

After gaining their trust, what followed was simple. It was nothing more than playing some tricks inside the treasure cave; he had done such things more than once back when he was an adventurer, and it was easy.

Things went even more smoothly than he had expected. The treasure cave of Bloody Hand Ruhl was actually accessed via a teleportation array. Who knew where this orc bandit had found this cave—perhaps it was the legacy of some great archmage...

With the help of this cave and a Death Cloud Spell scroll that was impossible to counter in an enclosed environment, he successfully completed a fatal trap. To ensure the effect, even after teleporting away, he destroyed the teleportation array that led into the treasure cave.

Even if that giant could resist the terrifying poisonous mist of the Death Cloud Spell, without the teleportation array, he would be unable to leave and could only stay inside to starve to death.

Ryan's plan was perfect; from design to execution, not a single error occurred.

So, when he stepped through the night back to Glimmerstone Town, his mood was incredibly pleasant. He even felt that the Divine Kingdom of the God of Conspiracy had opened its gates to him—that gloomy and quiet world, that world of endless night without day, where only the stars and moon shone upon believers who spent all day scheming against each other, playing seven or eight tricks even over the smallest matters, a world where someone like him would be like a fish in water... was right before him.

Therefore, he didn't even have time to send someone to redeem his son still being held at the casino before he rushed impatiently to the secret chamber he used for prayer and began to pray to the god he worshipped.

His secret chamber was not large, a completely enclosed small room. The four walls were pitch black, and only on the roof used for entry and exit were a few fragments of glowing magic stones embedded, resembling stars. But the stars parted left and right, and in the center was a deep red, dim crescent moon—that was the holy emblem of the God of Conspiracy.

In the four corners of the chamber stood special gray-green candles. Ryan lit them one by one, and gray-green smoke soon drifted through the room, accompanied by a strange fragrance that induced hallucinations. The smoke was blown by a breeze from the ventilation duct below, flowing toward the crescent moon overhead, forming the shape of an inverted vortex.

Ryan knelt in the center of the vortex, facing a small altar made from the skull of the former Thieves Guild master he had murdered, his face filled with anticipation and joy as he began to pray.

"Master of Shadows, dim moon that reigns over the night sky, mentor of deceit and betrayal, the mastermind behind the rise and fall of all things... Your humble servant prays to you here. The servant has completed the task you entrusted, deceived the enemy with a lie, and cast them into a dead end. May this small Sacrificial Offering bring you pleasure, and may the servant receive the honor of going to your kingdom after death to continue serving you..."

As he prayed, the pale skull altar glowed with an eerie black light. The black light was deep and thick, spreading slowly through the chamber like mucus. After a while, the entire chamber seemed to be soaked in black liquid.

In this rippling black light, Ryan's prayer sounded low and muffled, mixed with the echoes from the four walls, creating an unsettling rhythm.

Through the eyes of his soul, Sui Xiong saw a pillar of black light suddenly emerge from somewhere in the sky, slowly descending toward the secret chamber.

Having waited in the sky for a long time, he gave a cold smile. His massive body fully unfurled, his color-changing transparent form blending into the night sky and the stars, leaving even the sharpest mortal on the ground unable to detect a single clue. Tentacle after tentacle wove into numerous magic arrays, completely shrouding the entire Glimmerstone Town; not even a mosquito could get in again.

But this magic array left a gap, allowing the black pillar of light to continue descending, though several thick tentacles surrounded the pillar, ready to attack at any moment.

"The God of Conspiracy, is it? Your follower actually dared to deceive me and ambush me. Let's settle this account!"

The giant floating jellyfish waved its tentacles and sneered at the place where the black light was falling, waiting silently like a hunter ambushing its prey.

Inside the secret chamber, Ryan had been praying devoutly for quite some time, but for some reason, the God of Conspiracy did not respond to his prayer.

He was still praying, but his heart was already filled with panic.

A god responding to a believer's prayer is an innate instinct. If He stopped responding to prayers, it must mean the link of faith with the believer had been severed. Digging into the reason, it could be that the link of faith was blocked, or it could be that the god had fallen into a state of weakness, but the most common reason was—this believer had been abandoned by Him!

Could it be that he had been abandoned by His Majesty, the God of Conspiracy?

How could this be! He had just used a conspiracy to deceive a god! Wasn't this an act in accordance with the doctrine? Why, instead of pleasing the god, had he been abandoned by Him?!

Inside the secret chamber, the guild master of the Glimmerstone Town Thieves Guild fell into chaos.

He was nervous, he was frantic, countless thoughts darted around his mind like headless flies, and countless terrifying imaginings surfaced one after another. He felt he was finished; perhaps in the next second he would fall into hell, perhaps a cruel judge was already waving a burning iron fork, examining where on his body it would be most suitable to strike...

However, he was truly wronging the God of Conspiracy.

In fact, his actions had indeed greatly pleased the God of Conspiracy, so much so that the deity wished to send an emissary to welcome him to the divine realm.

However, both the God of Conspiracy's link of faith and the emissary sent by Him were intercepted.

Two to three hundred meters above the ground of Glimmerstone Town, a massive floating jellyfish fully extended its body, constructing a vast magic circle with its own form to completely sever the connection between the God of Conspiracy and His faithful follower.

Above it, a pair of powerful tentacles tightly coiled around a bizarre creature with four faces, six arms, and a body wreathed in chaotic black winds—this was the divine messenger of the God of Conspiracy, a strange being known as the Four-Faced Monster.

The Four-Faced Monster is an incredibly powerful entity; the black winds surrounding it are the manifestation of hallucinatory power, and mortals often fall into illusions merely by laying eyes upon them. These monsters were created by the God of Conspiracy specifically to deliver His commands; whenever they appear in the mortal realm, they cause the righteous to tremble in fear and villains who love conspiracy to cheer with joy.

But this time, the Four-Faced Monster, traveling to the mortal realm in accordance with the God of Conspiracy's orders, was intercepted on the way. A giant jellyfish, completely ignoring its formidable magic and terrifying illusions, had ensnared it with its tentacles and, disregarding the various spells it continuously cast and the wrath of the deity behind it, intended to swallow it whole.

"What goes around comes around; I'll start by eating your divine messenger!"