Chapter 1442: 1442: Adjudicator Game: Game Invasion 47
Rita looked at the little cubes that stubbornly refused to form a perfect cube no matter how they arranged themselves.
"Do you absolutely need something to fill the remaining spaces?"
All the tiny cubes nodded in unison.
Rita found herself in a difficult position.
She didn’t want to simply toss some random item inside to make up the numbers.
Just like the Game Invasion illustration composed of ten thousand puzzle pieces, every piece carried equal weight.
Within that painting rested an entire world.
This cube should be the same.
She could already sense what was stored inside the existing blocks.
The whispers of the Prisoners.
These were the murmurs that had echoed through every prison cell over the course of three full epochs.
The voices of every race.
Every living being.
Even B80’s whispers were among them.
After all, it too had been imprisoned for three epochs.
When the prisons unlocked and became worlds, the Prisoners still had not achieved complete freedom.
But their lives were infinitely better than the endless darkness they had endured before.
These were the whispers and blessings of countless imprisoned souls.
If that was the case...
Then whatever filled the remaining empty cubes had to possess equal weight.
World Sigh flipped open on its own.
Blank pages rustled before settling upon the illustration titled Game Invasion.
Within the artwork, several hundred puzzle pieces were unique.
In some hidden corner of each piece flickered a tiny blue flame.
Occasionally it vanished from one side and appeared on another.
Would these work?
The flames of divine wills buried within Order Clock after death.
Existences that could only briefly leave their tomb of time each day.
Every single one had been a ruler or leader who fought until the very end within this exile zone.
A different kind of Prisoner.
There were enough of them too.
More than enough to fill the missing spaces.
Most importantly...
She had already intended to leave this illustration behind in the Third Epoch.
And she had been wondering where to relocate all those buried divine wills.
Her hand brushed gently across the painting as though dusting away ash.
Clusters of blue soul flames floated out and drifted toward the incomplete cube.
Instantly, every existing cube block lit up.
The little cubes stopped moving.
No more frantic adjustments.
They simply waited quietly for the flames to arrive.
Then a new problem appeared.
There were slightly more divine wills than empty cube spaces.
Which meant some gods would have to share rooms.
Fortunately, their waking schedules didn’t overlap.
As long as she paired those whose active periods never coincided, everything would be fine.
For example, QM Foolishness, who woke at 7:22 in the morning.
And Starsea Byme, who only appeared at 10:17 at night.
If they shared the same room, they would never meet.
Never fight.
They might not even realize someone else lived there.
The only troublesome part was figuring out how to let these divine wills wander freely during their waking periods, just as they had in the Graveyard of Bones.
Rita didn’t want to restrict them.
But that was a problem for later.
As soul fire burned, transparent barriers identical to the other cubes appeared around them.
The little blocks began stacking together.
Layer upon layer.
Forming a complete cube.
Yet at that exact moment, Rita frowned.
She lowered her gaze toward her chest.
The contract link connecting her to B80 had appeared again.
Then she heard a voice coming from the other end.
[Highest command successfully received: Eliminate the Unique Key.]
Something had happened.
Had the Eye of Surveillance opened?
Or had its master finally arrived?
Those were the only possibilities she could think of.
Only such a situation could explain why she suddenly felt an extremely dangerous gaze settle upon her through the void.
Thinking about the Eye’s terrifying power...
Thinking about how the divine players and world leaders would absolutely throw themselves into the front lines now that nothing restricted them...
Rita immediately abandoned the soul fire she had been using to conceal the anomalies of the exile zone.
Instead, she established a new supreme game rule.
[All Adjudicator players are fully unsealed.]
[Divine players and world leaders may additionally draw 100 soul fire every minute.]
The moment this rule touched the Order of the Third Epoch, twenty percent of her available soul fire vanished instantly.
Another fifty percent entered a locked state.
This was already her limit.
If she granted any more, soul fire regeneration would fail to keep up.
The entire system would collapse.
Only after fully unsealing every player’s combat strength did she suppress her anxiety and turn back toward the nearly completed cube.
"Kill your Unique Key."
"This is the highest command."
Upon receiving that order, the most unique Ash Inspector slowly rose to its feet.
As the being that had overseen the exile zone for countless years, it was also the strongest.
Unlike other Ash Inspectors, this one constantly split off countless programs to conduct games and battles.
Every second of every day, it learned.
Every second of every day, it witnessed the birth of new things.
It spent soul fire to create games.
It followed its master’s will and squeezed every ounce of potential from living beings.
Other Ash Inspectors were called Ash Inspectors because their abilities had been classified by God as "Inspector."
This one, however, was called Ash Inspector simply because God had been too lazy to give it a different title.
Or perhaps because God had never considered it important enough to deserve one.
Scythe in hand, it charged directly toward Nivalis.
Everyone knew the first rule of combat.
Kill the pet first.
Watching B80 rush toward her, Nivalis couldn’t shake the feeling that its killing intent looked completely genuine.
She let out a draconic roar.
Her tail lightly brushed the end of BS Rita’s hair.
[For Her Perfection]
All attributes synchronized.
Nivalis charged directly at this epoch’s B80.
She had wanted to hit B80 for a very long time.
Seriously, what was wrong with this thing?
Arguing was one thing.
But who pointed at someone’s nose and accused them of being unwilling to give everything for BS Rita?
Not to mention the home Wi-Fi password was still B8017913.
And somehow this shameless machine had changed the settings so the password had to be entered again every single day.
Disgusting.
The moment Ash Inspector and Nivalis moved, the entire battlefield erupted.
All divine players charged toward the unknown being that called itself a god.
The moment they had stepped in front of it earlier, they had already prepared themselves to die.
If their soul fire revivals ran out, there were still the rules BS Rita had established when everyone crossed the Sigh Bridge.
Worst case scenario?
They would simply pile corpses until they won.
Besides...
BS Rita’s newest rule echoed across Starsea.
[All Adjudicator players are fully unsealed.]
[Divine players and world leaders may additionally draw 100 soul fire every minute.]
The former master of the exile zone naturally heard it as well.
Its horse tail twitched uneasily.
Although it appeared calm and in complete control...
The truth was that it wasn’t certain it could handle so many beings whose soul fires had already fully ignited.
Otherwise, why would it have established periodic purges in the first place?
Even in the higher-dimensional world, these players would be impossible to ignore.
What made matters worse was something it had noticed immediately upon arrival.
When some players died, they revived in distant prison cells.
This was an Order established by the being seated upon the throne.
She refused to let her players become consumable resources.
If even those weak ants could revive...
Then these elite warriors certainly would not die easily.
No.
This could not continue indefinitely.
The curved blade rose high into the air.
Behind it, the Eye of Surveillance shone brilliantly.
Then it spoke once more.
"Prisoners born within the exile zone shall permanently lose one Divine Talent upon every death."
"When all Divine Talents have been lost, they shall instead lose either one to three points of soul fire..."
"...or their three most frequently used skills."
"This is Divine Punishment."
It could no longer reclaim the talents it had once granted.
But if that person could establish new Orders...
Then so could it.
Death had to carry a cost.
Only then could fear be born.
