The Organization Behind Joker

Gu Jianlin drew a deep breath as he watched the incredible scene.

After the Soul-Pacifying Bell extracted the imprisoned soul, it still retained its memories, though it could no longer fight. Its self-awareness was erased, leaving it like a marionette that obeyed its master's commands without question.

The shattered soul vaguely reflected Joker's appearance.

The young man asked in a low voice, "I've read your file. Half a year ago, you took part in the Kirin Immortal Palace exploration project as a dimensional surveyor. What was your relationship with Gu Ci'an back then?"

After a brief silence, Joker's fragmented soul began to stir faintly.

No sound emerged, only waves of mental energy.

Yet Gu Jianlin instinctively understood what he meant.

"We were still colleagues back then."

That was Joker's answer.

Gu Jianlin pressed on. "What was Gu Ci'an's job?"

Joker answered woodenly, "He was an investigator for the Kirin Immortal Palace. Before the official exploration of the Ancient God Realm began, he surveyed it repeatedly and compiled a guide. Few people were capable of doing that work."

"That was because, eight years ago, when the Kirin Immortal Palace dimension was first located, several accidents had already occurred. The worst one killed more than two hundred people, and members of the Ether Association defected."

"Back then, Gu Ci'an and Lu Zijin were on the same team. Their teammate, the Nightmare Master, went mad during a survey mission. In pursuit of advancement, he performed a bloody ritual that killed many investigators."

"Lu Zijin's younger brother, Lu Zicheng, had been the Nightmare Master's student. He was also one of the survivors."

Gu Jianlin was stunned. He hadn't expected Captain Lu to have such a past.

"The higher-ups took the matter very seriously. As a top elite among the Night Watchers, Gu Ci'an received high-level orders from them for several subsequent surveys of the Ancient God Realm."

"Gu Ci'an had two assignments. One was to investigate several accidents; the other was to track down the defectors. Some of them had stolen precious ancient texts and fled into the Kirin Immortal Palace."

"When Gu Ci'an led a team into the Kirin Immortal Palace, those of us in administrative roles were responsible for compiling intelligence, organizing backup and rescue efforts, and transporting supplies."

"But the first time we tried to enter the Immortal Palace, we encountered something extremely bizarre..."

Gu Jianlin's voice lowered. "Go on."

Unexpectedly, Joker's soul, though stripped of its self-awareness, began to tremble in terror.  

In his life before Gu Jianlin, he had always believed the soul was something people had imagined. Only after becoming an Ascender had he confirmed that it existed. It was like a concentration of the spirit, a tangible manifestation of consciousness.

As an individual advanced, their soul grew stronger as well.

At that moment, Joker's soul was filled with overwhelming terror. It proved that the incident had left him with deep psychological scars. That fear had been imprinted on his soul, never forgotten even after death.

His soul was like a candle flame, flickering on the verge of going out.

"Could something really scare a person with a mental illness this badly?"

Gu Jianlin couldn't help wondering. He tried shaking the Soul-Pacifying Bell, producing a clear chime.

The Soul-Pacifying Bell had a powerful effect on the souls it enslaved, both controlling and soothing them.

Joker's soul gradually calmed and sent out waves of thought.

"It was winter, half a year ago. One of the Ether Association's three leaders, a Supreme known as Rhine, ordered a large-scale exploration of the Kirin Immortal Palace. It began when fishermen along the East Sea coast accidentally dredged up an artifact from antiquity. It was a fragment of a meteorite, inscribed with ancient script and containing the secrets of Changsheng."

"After it was identified, the fragment was found to belong to the lost Ancient God Race, the Kirin Clan. Unlike the descriptions in ancient Huaxian records, the so-called Qilin wasn't an auspicious beast. It was a savage, terrifying creature. It was violent by nature, and wherever it went, it robbed life from everything around it. It commanded the power of the world's dark side, bringing disaster and ill omens."

"It was a symbol of destruction, existing only to plunder. Legend had it that in antiquity, those who worshipped it were granted immense vitality—and thus true Changsheng."

Gu Jianlin was stunned. That ability sounded a little like the Divine Priest Path.

Or perhaps a more powerful version of it.

No wonder the Qilin had told him to choose the Divine Priest Path. Maybe the two were deeply connected.

After all, a legacy path was humanity's way of imitating the gods.

"The Ancient God Realm was too vast to explore completely. It wasn't until we found an artifact left behind from the battle between the Kirin Venerable and Candle Dragon Venerable that we were able to search for ancient relics on a large scale, following the clues. We eventually found the ancient texts Xu Fu left behind during his eastward voyage. Only then did we have a chance to put together a guide."

"But a week after the artifacts were unearthed, one of our leading archaeologists suddenly defected with the ancient text Records of Xu Fu. It was an extremely important text, and might even have been a map of the Kirin Immortal Palace."

"According to our investigation, the archaeologist who defected was an Alchemist. His medicine had gone out of control, turning him into a Fallen. That was why he took Records of Xu Fu and tried to enter the Kirin Immortal Palace in search of a cure."

Gu Jianlin suddenly understood. He had a pretty good idea who the person carrying the text had been.

There was a good chance it was the old man who had awakened him in the ancient tomb.

No wonder he had been in such a hurry. He was not only a Fallen but also a fugitive.

"Gu Ci'an was an absolute elite, a sixth-stage Celestial Master and one of the best among those of the Transcendent rank. Besides his rank, he was also a top scholar of the ancient era. He possessed extensive knowledge of the Ancient God Race and was an expert at profiling."

"He had taken part in the second survey of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, the excavation of the Atlantis ruins, and the spacetime rift at the Kunlun Hell Gate. He'd even fought an ancestral Ancient God face-to-face at the legendary fractured Mount Buzhou."

"Under Gu Ci'an's leadership, we organized the survey quickly, and everything went smoothly. We gathered a great deal of information about the Kirin Immortal Palace. We also confirmed that the palace had three levels: one beneath the sea, one at sea level, and the tomb where the Kirin Venerable slept was in the sky!"

Gu Jianlin listened in silence.

So far, the Kirin Immortal Palace exploration project seemed to have gone smoothly. Nothing had gone wrong.

But he sensed that this was probably the calm before the storm.

"We came ashore excitedly, carrying all those precious resources. The diving team had sixteen people, all of them top-tier elites, and not one had been hurt. It was a huge success."

"The subsequent surveys also went smoothly, without any casualties, until one day a powerful magnetic field appeared on the seabed and interfered with our signals. We lost contact for a short while."

"I was frantic on shore. When the signal returned, I immediately asked them to report in."

"Number one, all clear. Number two, all clear. Number three, all clear..."

"I listened to their reports until I heard... Number seventeen, all clear!"

Joker's mental energy surged violently.

Gu Jianlin felt a chill run down his spine.

There had only been sixteen people. How could there be a number seventeen?

Something must have slipped into the diving team!

That didn't necessarily mean the person who reported in as number seventeen was the problem.

It was also possible that the strange thing had blended in with the team and reported in ahead of everyone else.

Joker's thoughts churned violently, so Gu Jianlin had to soothe him again with the Soul-Pacifying Bell.

"That was when I realized something might have happened. But strangely, there were still only sixteen people, and nothing seemed wrong. It was as if I'd only imagined hearing it. They didn't remember anyone reporting in as number seventeen, either."

"But I was sure I'd heard it. I reported it to my superiors, but none of them believed me. I was certain some kind of ghost had infiltrated the diving team. I... I had to find it!"

"Not long afterward, members of our project team began disappearing under bizarre circumstances. They vanished without a trace, neither alive nor dead, as if an invisible whirlpool had swallowed them. There was never another sign of them."

"I started to panic. I realized that if I didn't find that demon, we'd all die! So I started killing people. If I suspected someone, I killed them! I had to kill that demon, or I'd be the one to die!"

"I suspected Gu Ci'an, but he was too strong. I waited for an opportunity until... I found Gu Ci'an's diary."

Gu Jianlin's gaze sharpened. "Keep going!"

In the silence, Joker's thoughts sent him an idea that chilled his blood.

"Much of the diary was written in strange symbols. They must have been a code he invented himself. But I'm good at cryptography, and with the Deep Sky Network's massive computing power, I was able to decipher part of it."

"Gu Ci'an had known for a long time that something in the Kirin Immortal Palace was still alive. He deliberately brought us down there to awaken it and accomplish his own goal."

"There's more than one sleeping Ancient God in the Kirin Immortal Palace!"

Gu Jianlin shuddered and asked, "Then what?"

"That's all. I only got that far in the diary."

Joker's mental energy was numb.

Gu Jianlin asked, "Why?"

Joker replied mechanically, "Because Gu Ci'an was standing behind me while I was deciphering the diary."

Damn.

Gu Jianlin's scalp prickled.

He rarely swore, but even he could barely keep it together.

Under the Soul-Pacifying Bell's control, Joker couldn't lie.

From this account, Old Gu's mental state seemed deeply abnormal.

It was downright bizarre.

"Gu Ci'an killed at random, so I was lucky enough to survive. Someone rescued me when I was on the verge of death."

Joker answered in a low voice, "I eventually joined the organization I belong to now, the Grave Diggers. We have a base in Black Cloud Stronghold, and we've been watching your actions all this time."

So they really were an organization.

Gu Jianlin frowned. "Why are you after me?"

Joker answered, "We suspect Gu Ci'an gave you something before he died. We don't dare kill you, because you're our only lead, so we can only test you gradually. We need that thing to reach the deepest part of the Kirin Immortal Palace, confirm the Kirin Venerable's condition, and secure a huge reward."

For a moment, Gu Jianlin was chilled to the bone.

So these people were after him because of the Kirin Venerable.

In the end, he was still their target!

A strong sense of danger washed over him. "Who's behind you?"

A faint tremor sounded.

The Soul-Pacifying Bell shook violently, its dark aura roiling.

Joker's soul writhed in agony, as if enduring some unimaginably cruel torment. It let out a silent scream.

A sudden change struck!

Joker's soul abruptly collapsed, and an endless cloud of bloody mist poured out of it. Within the crimson haze, a pair of vertical pupils glowed with the heat of molten rock, as though they had crossed a distant stretch of time to cast a terrible, chilling glance his way!

What kind of terrifying monster was it? A monstrous silhouette loomed in the mist, like a giant beast that had slept in the depths of hell, now roaring toward him!

Holy shit!

Gu Jianlin jumped in fright. An immense pressure slammed into him, and his heart nearly stopped.

The majesty of antiquity bore down on him, nearly crushing him to pieces.

At the critical moment, the Black Kirin in his mind abruptly awoke, opening a sliver of its blazing Golden Eyes and letting out a roar!

Gu Jianlin felt the spiritual energy inside him evaporating rapidly!

Boom!

The ancient pressure shattered and vanished without a trace.

Joker's soul was instantly reduced to ash. The pair of majestic pupils in the bloody mist flickered weakly.

Then they vanished into the night.