Chapter 791 — Faintly Emerging

Seeing that classic scheming expression surface on Gao Yang's face, Amber very much wanted to roll her eyes on the spot, but feared being slapped onto the wall for real and thus rolling her eyes in earnest, so she could only forcibly suppress the urge to nag and changed the subject. "Speaking of the Typhon royal house, the Military Intelligence Bureau has recently been investigating intelligence on the hereditary 'madness' of the Augustus family, and we've discovered some interesting things."

"Oh?" Gao Yang raised an eyebrow. "Let's hear it."

Understanding one's adversary is the foundation of protecting oneself. On that basis, Gao Yang had been paying close attention to Typhon's Augustus family ever since the Southern Region Unification War, especially the famous legend of their family's "curse of madness," and gathering intelligence in that area was likewise a key task of the Military Intelligence Bureau in Typhon. Hearing now that there was new intelligence, he immediately perked up.

"From the fairly public intelligence already gathered, we know that the Augustus family's 'madness' was not always present—it appeared only after the event known as the 'Great Collapse' two hundred years ago," Amber began her report at once. "Two hundred years ago, Typhon's old imperial capital collapsed in a great earthquake and sank wholly into the earth. But before the collapse occurred, the Typhon Emperor of the time foresaw the disaster and evacuated the city in advance, thereby averting casualties. Only afterward did the members of the Augustus family begin to be plagued by the curse of madness...

"In the latest intelligence we've collected, there is now an explanation for this 'curse' that appeared only after the Great Collapse.

"Some of Typhon's upper nobility and scholars hold a certain view: that the collapse of the old imperial capital two hundred years ago was no natural disaster but a man-made one—that the Typhon royal house of the time attempted to draw some forbidden power from the earth, brought down a backlash upon itself, and thereby caused the Great Collapse. Thus the Typhon Emperor of that time did not foresee any disaster; he knew the ritual had gone out of control and ordered the evacuation.

"As for the so-called madness, it is the aftereffect of that backlash—the out-of-control power deep within the earth polluted the souls of the Augustuses and passed that pollution down from generation to generation to this day."

"A man-made disaster... attempting to draw power from deep within the earth?" Gao Qi furrowed his brow. "That sounds more like some absurd, unrestrained tale of court scandal. Such legends slandering the reputation of the royal house must be taboo in Typhon, surely?"

"Of course. No one dares discuss such legends openly—to discuss them openly is to be not far from death. The Typhon royal house has always been iron-fisted, quite unlike the Ansu royal family of old," Amber nodded. "But such things are always preserved in secret and passed around ceaselessly among certain less-than-honest nobles and scholars.

"In his early years, Loyan Augustus adopted all manner of forceful measures to push through reforms, yet because of the constraints of the domestic situation he did not carry them through as thoroughly as you did. This left a great many resentful nobles within Typhon. These nobles may not oppose Loyan's rule, but they certainly would not mind discussing in private a few 'little stories' about the Augustus family.

"Such little stories do sound absurd and unrestrained, but since they dare touch upon the royal house and manage to circulate among quite a few scholars and extraordinary individuals, some part of their content must be true..."

Gao Yang glanced at Amber. "These things you've told me—they look to have been screened and verified already?"

"I've stripped out the overly absurd and malicious content and kept the parts that corroborate one another across various versions of rumor and legend," Amber nodded. "I wouldn't dare say it's the truth, but the claim that the Augustus family stirred up something two hundred years ago and thereby brought the hereditary madness upon themselves is most likely true."

"...Now I'm rather curious just what lies buried beneath their collapsed old imperial capital," Gao Yang said quietly after hearing her out. "The Lord of Storms lies buried beneath the deep sea; the Fortress of Defiance lies buried in the Dark Mountains; beneath the Great Tree of Solin runs the legacy of the Reverse Tide Empire... In this world, digging holes in the ground is no safe business."

As he spoke, another somewhat peculiar thought sprang up in his mind unbidden:

That Princess Matilda Augustus, soon to arrive—does she too carry within her this curse that will one day bring madness?

...

Within the circular hall of the Central Temple in Illusory Pivot City, Selina Gale's figure had just coalesced out of the air when she heard the voice of the Hierarch You Yao Heng sounding beside her:

"Church of the Celestial Flame, our first probe into Sandbox One has run into trouble."

"I know," said Selena, her figure growing solid as she turned to Yuri in his white robes. "What exactly is the situation?"

"The first batch of spirit knights to enter Sandbox One arrived at a city utterly devoid of people. Inside they found records gone mad and garbled, recounting that the world had already ended and that all beings had escaped the meaningless cycle of reincarnation. After exploring the city's surroundings, the operatives confirmed that no residents remained anywhere in the area," Yuri of the Balanced Flame said, speaking at a rapid clip. "Using that band of spirit knights as our psychic beacon, we finally re-established surveillance over Sandbox One—and then we discovered... every mind inside it really has vanished!"

Selena Gerfen's expression turned grave in an instant. "All of them—including the real test subjects, and every virtual personality simulated by the sandbox?"

"Yes, all of them," Yuri of the Balanced Flame nodded. "There is no longer a single 'resident' in Sandbox One, and it is very likely that it was 'emptied' as early as the first days after the sandbox was sealed. That phantom town we explored earlier presented an utterly vacant appearance—we once guessed it was an 'anomaly' caused by projection distortion, but now it seems that vacancy was never a 'distorted anomaly' at all, but the true state of Sandbox One—it is running empty! It has been running empty all along."

Sandbox One, which had been out of control for a very long time—Sandbox One, which ought to have held tens of thousands of "residents"—Sandbox One, whose interior had been evolving at high speed all the while, and which in its early失控 days had still projected phantom images of its residents—had in fact been empty for ages.

The minds within it... where had they gone?

Those "residents" it had projected in its early days, the "priest" in the phantom town... what on earth were they?

Though she had long since lost her physical form in the real world, Selena Gerfen felt an inexplicable chill suddenly rise through her.