Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 644: Ending
"..." Ke Lan was silent for a few seconds before he said, "Answer me a question first."
Demeter: "What's the problem?"
"How many members are there in the Undead Crew, including Chiron and Pan who are already dead?"
"Why are you asking this?" Demeter's tone was filled with a hint of doubt.
"Just answer me... For a 'prospective member' like me, the number of members in the organization can't be a secret, right?"
"I thought you already knew..." Demeter said, "The seats of the Undead Crew are arranged according to the Major Arcana cards in the Tarot. There are a total of twenty-two seats and twenty-four people."
"Who are those two extra people?"
"There's no one extra. The tenth seat, 'Fate', corresponds to the three goddesses of fate in Greek mythology: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The three of them together are equivalent to a complete tenth seat." Demeter explained.
"Then the Undead Crew will have no members other than the twenty-two seats... such as non-staff members?"
"No." Demeter rejected it outright. "Except for you who are currently on probation, there will be no other members on the crew."
Ke Lan couldn't help but frown.
At least one of the informant and Demeter was lying.
Although Demeter had previously condoned the researchers in the institute to conduct dangerous research, which led to the "memetic incident", it does not mean that she is a traitor within the Undead Crew - her behavior can only mean that she is a "radical" within the crew, but it cannot prove that she has any connection with the heretical sect.
Now that she can contact me now, it means that she has passed the internal review procedures of the crew association.
"Can you answer my question now? Has Pan been in contact with you since the combat operation began?" Demeter asked again.
Ke Lan thought for a moment, but still chose not to hide it: "Someone did contact Pan, and he also sent the mass-produced Fallen Angels. He also told me about the Original Corrosion Seed and the Blood of the True God... But he is not Pan."
"Who is he?" another older male voice interrupted.
"The one talking to you now is not just me, but all the remaining members of the Undead Crew." Demeter said to Ke Lan.
"Well, that person is an intelligence dealer I met in the Hunter Forum. I have known him for four or five years... Just before the combat operation began, he suddenly contacted me and revealed to me that he was actually a member of the Undead Crew. He also emphasized that he did not have a seat or code name in the Undead Crew, but had the same authority as everyone else." Ke Lan paused and continued, "Since he often provided me with intelligence that could not be obtained through normal channels, as well as the authority to mobilize the field army, I believed him."
"What's his ID?" the old male voice asked.
"ACMS_0420."
In less than half a minute, Demeter had already found out the real identity behind this ID: "The registrant of this account is named Li Hao. He was born in the fourth public human cultivation center in East District 7 in 921 of the new era. As an adult, he lived alone in Wilson District, South District 8, and made a living online with self-taught computer skills."
Wilson District in South District 8? Ke Lan was not unfamiliar with this place name. This place was one of the more famous slums on the Ark. With the income level of an intelligence dealer, it should be easy for him to buy a house in the first three districts. The reason why he chose to continue living in the slums was probably to hide his true identity.
After all, it is easy for a person with no background and no legitimate job to suddenly take out a large sum of money to arouse suspicion from others... Many hackers that Ke Lan knows usually like to hang out in such slums, dressed as street thugs or unemployed vagrants who rely on official subsistence allowances to get by and wait for death, but few people can guess that the credit points in their secret accounts have exceeded the savings of many white-collar executives who go in and out of the first three areas every day.
"You should have sent people to arrest him by now, right?" Ke Lan asked.
"No... This man named Li Hao died a year ago in a street fight near his residence. According to the files of the public security department, he was out shopping for daily necessities at that time. On his way home, he encountered a gunfight between two gangs and was unfortunately hit in the neck by a stray bullet and died on the spot." Demeter said, "Calculating the time, it was not long after you returned to the Ark from the glacial ruins... In addition, Pan's authority was used to dispatch the mass-produced Fallen Angel Squad. As for the matter of the Original Corrosion Seed and the God's Blood, it was also something Pan originally intended to tell you."
That information dealer had died a year ago? In other words, after he returned from the glacial ruins, the person behind this account was no longer the information dealer he once knew?
Ke Lan suddenly thought that the information about the bottomless pit was provided to her by the "new owner" of this account, and later when she was trapped in a dream, she also received an email from him...
Thinking of this, Ke Lan couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
What is this person's purpose?
"Can you trace the IP address based on subsequent login records? With your capabilities, this should be very simple, right? Even if the other party uses a virtual IP, you can locate the physical address by querying the computer chip code, right?" Ke Lan asked.
"We checked at the beginning. The real IP address for subsequent logins is located at Li Hao's residence... The machine used is a self-assembled computer, and all the components are electronic waste bought from the black market. It is impossible to trace it..." Demeter said, "The clues are completely cut off here."
"After Li Hao died, no one else moved into that house?"
"Li Hao's residence was an illegal building, not a standard Ark resident apartment, and was not under the official jurisdiction of the Ark. After Li Hao's death, the building became a place for homeless people... When the security bureau arrived there, they only found a few homeless people with dishevelled hair and dirty faces."
"The Security Bureau is really quick. Have these homeless people been interrogated?" Ke Lan asked.
"I interrogated them, but didn't get any valuable information... The first person to come here moved in a week ago. Before him, this room had at least dozens of 'occupants'..." Demeter sighed, which was very rare.
"Is it possible that he did not deceive me and he is a member of the Undead Crew?" Ke Lan said in a deep voice, "Perhaps, he is sitting with you all right now, listening to my analysis... But what I don't understand is his motive for doing this. Whether in terms of the result or the process, what he did is almost the same as what Pan was going to do... Another thing, why did he want to kill Pan?"
"There is currently no evidence to show that Pan died at the hands of this person." said a clear girl's voice that Ke Lan had never heard before.
"Even if he didn't kill Pan, he is still responsible." Ke Lan immediately retorted, "Otherwise, how could he replace Pan to communicate with me? By the way, how did Pan die? Can you tell me this?"
"Before you officially join the Undead Crew..." The girl was interrupted by the old man's voice just as she was speaking: "Tell him, it doesn't hurt."
"Pan died from a tampered program," Demeter said. "The nutrients that were supposed to be injected into his body were replaced with a high concentration of cyanide."
" Poisoned to death?" Ke Lan was a little surprised. "I thought everyone in your Undead Crew was really immortal... Can't you find out who tampered with the program?"
"The only people who have the authority to modify this thing are members of the crew council, and it requires simultaneous confirmation from three or more people in the seats... As you said, there may indeed be a traitor in our midst," said the old male voice.
"And there's more than one." Ke Lan added for him.
"Yes... We need you for this matter..." This time it was the old man's turn to be interrupted, and the person who interrupted him was Ke Lan.
"We'll talk about this later." Ke Lan said, reaching out to grasp the hilt of the sword at his waist, "I found that there is one thing... that has not been dealt with."
A bloody body struggled to crawl out from the ruins of Alexandria. His body was covered with festering wounds. These wounds were rapidly rotting, but were also regenerating rapidly... This person's entire body was going back and forth between this state of death and rebirth.
"He's not even dead yet?" Ke Lan secretly complained in his heart and walked towards the other party.
The prophet seemed to be in extreme pain at this moment. The expression on the remaining half of his face was extremely ferocious, while the other half of his face directly exposed the bright red muscles and white bones underneath. Countless tiny tentacles emerged from the muscle texture and kept wriggling.
"It looks like this is really the real body this time." Ke Lan said in a half-sighing and half-joking tone, "If it was a substitute, you would have discarded it long ago."
He gently pulled Asano Akira's sword out of the sheath, and the thumb of his left hand, which was holding the sheath, slowly and steadily rubbed across the blade.
The war was over, and now all he needed to do was to end things with someone - of course, provided that the other person could still be called a "human being".
"I... still lost... hiss..." An unclear voice came out from the prophet's throat. It tried to stand up, but eventually fell to the ground.
"Have we won yet..." Ke Lan stared at the "monster" in front of him with extreme disgust. "The 160,000 ground troops were almost wiped out, one-third of the Ark's main ship was destroyed, and more than 20 million civilian casualties... The entire East District was completely evaporated..."
Although the core members of the God Hunting Group had been transferred to "Aguna Tor", nearly half of the logistics personnel still remained at the headquarters in the East Fourth District. In addition, there were newly recruited reserve hunters and employees' families in the training base... all of them were completely wiped out from this world with the dazzling white light, without even a trace of their existence left.
In order to feed the families of their fallen soldiers, the hounds once risked their lives to explore one high-level ruin after another... Now, after the God Hunting Group has finally been able to provide them with a relatively amenable living environment, they have encountered such an unexpected disaster.
Many of these families didn’t even have a month to move into their new homes…
Just a few minutes ago, the new life that was full of hope in their eyes came to an end along with their lives.
A period filled with resentment, indignation and grief.
This is just the loss of the God Hunters. There are many more people and families... When the disaster struck, the children at home might have just returned home from school, and they couldn't wait to turn on the TV and wait for the new cartoons to be broadcast on time; the mother might be cooking in the kitchen, and the smell of oil smoke filled the whole house; the father might be handling extra work in front of the computer, thinking that if he gets a raise next month, he might be able to send his children to a better school next year...
This is just a microcosm of thousands of ordinary families.
Ke Lan suddenly thought of Ye Yan. The headquarters of the Ye Group is located in the East Second District. Due to its relatively inland location, some plots of land may still remain, but the possibility of people living on these plots of land surviving... is almost zero.
Ke Lan didn't dare to think about it anymore.
"Unfortunately, Alexander's 'Ultimate Judgment' still missed the target..." the prophet said, panting.
"What would happen if it missed?" Ke Lan asked, suppressing his anger.
"Go through the center of the Ark and directly destroy the core area, burning those undead crew members and their coffins to ashes."
"Have you never considered the casualties of ordinary people?"
"Do humans care about the insects hiding under the soil when they are cultivating the land?" The prophet said as he reached a hand that was almost boneless into his abdomen, pulled out a rotting tentacle, and threw it on the ground. "Even the members of the Undead Crew don't care about their deaths, so why should I care?"
"Oh." Ke Lan said. Although the anger in his heart was difficult to suppress, the expression on his face became calmer and calmer - he didn't even bother to find a few suitable words to insult the other party.
"You will regret it sooner or later." The prophet continued, "When you know the truth, you will regret your choice today... I can guarantee it... Ha... Haha..."
"So, what is the truth?" Ke Lan held the knife and walked to a place less than three meters away from the prophet. He stopped and looked at it coldly.
"I can't tell you... because as soon as I tell you... the undead crew will... will... immediately wipe you out... Hahaha..." The prophet struggled to get up from the ground and knelt in front of Ke Lan, "Haha, what do you think... don't you think it's... ironic..."
“Puff——”
Ke Lan didn't waste any words and directly stabbed the opponent's chest with his sword.
Although the living armor had been burned by the flames during the "ritual", Ke Lan's body, which had been transformed and strengthened by the living armor, was preserved.
He stepped on the prophet's shoulder and slowly pulled the knife out of his chest. Wherever the knife touched, the flesh and blood instantly turned into gray-white tissue like tattered cotton wool, and then quickly turned into smelly pus, dripping onto the ground.
"You will regret it sooner or later!" The prophet suddenly laughed, and rotten blood and fragments of internal organs spurted out of his ruptured throat. "Because you are just a chess piece! An extremely stupid chess piece that sees the edge of the chessboard but is still unwilling to jump out! Hahaha!"
“Shua——”
Beheaded with one knife.
The laughter stopped abruptly.
