Chapter 783 Tombstone

“Missing?”

Chen Xiaolian then continued in a hushed tone, “In other words, none of you knew that he is already dead?”

“Our lifespans are the same as yours. Five thousand years have passed. How could he still be alive?” Miao Yan rolled her eyes at Chen Xiaolian.

“Only, Osgiliath did indeed went missing all of a sudden back then. Additionally, not long after he went missing, the Lower Plane underwent its first refresh.”

“In other words… he may have witnessed the first GM’s betrayal.” Chen Xiaolian rubbed his chin and slowly continued, “But… this is different from our previous speculation.”

He was somewhat disappointed.

No one had ever managed to collect all seven seeds of the World Tree before. Even Du Wei only had one seed with him.

When handing it to Chen Xiaolian, Du Wei had informed Chen Xiaolian about his suspicions. He suspected that a certain member of the Development Team had modified the authority of the first GM, even giving the first GM the ambition to betray them. Meanwhile, that member escaped to this third world to evade the pursuit of the Development Team.

Based on what Chen Xiaolian had seen through the wings, this seemed to be the most plausible explanation.

The members of the Development Team who were using angel bodies had uttered a total of two sentences.

The first sentence: “The main controller has been modified! His authority and powers have been greatly upgraded! We… … we are no longer a match for him!”

The second sentence: “Damn him! Does he think he can escape? Once we deal with the main controller, he will be next! Even if he escapes into his little world, it will be useless!”

Du Wei believed that the one who modified the first GM’s authority and powers was the one that the Development Team was talking about, the one who had gone to the third world. This person was most likely a traitor from the Development Team.

Du Wei could not think of anyone else besides someone from the Development Team who could create a world out of thin air.

After reading the information within the wings, Chen Xiaolian too came to the same conclusion.

Chen Xiaolian’s original plan in coming here was to find the member of the Development Team. If there was the opportunity, he had wanted to ask him to cancel the additional authority and powers that he had given to the first GM.

As a clone of the first GM, Shen would definitely grow weaker as a result of that.

That was the only way Chen Xiaolian might defeat him.

At present, however, it would appear that his – and Du Wei’s – assumption was fundamentally wrong.

There was no member of the Development Team here, only a Player.

A Player who had been dead for 5,000 years.

Chen Xiaolian released a soft sigh and shook his head. “Then, this Osgiliath… what happened to him?”

His original plan had fallen apart. Still, now that he was here, Chen Xiaolian decided to give it a try to see if he could find something to help him defeat Shen.

“Osgiliath Rudolph…” Miao Yan gently raised the tombstone. She stood beside it and stared at the words and picture of the flaming tulip on it.

“He is someone from 5,000 years ago. But to this day, every Player knows his name. That alone should inform you just what kind of position he has in our world.

“In the hearts of the Players… even if he is not God, he is practically no different from one.

“Legend has it he would always act alone. He had no guild. However, in every instance dungeon that he participated in, no matter how strong the monsters inside the instance dungeon were, he would easily crush through everything as he completed the quest.

“If someone were to meet Osgiliath in an instance dungeon and were assigned to the same side as him, it would mean complete safety and a 100% chance of winning. Those fellows can do nothing inside, just follow Osgiliath, watch as he casually finished off all the enemies and pass through the instance dungeon.

“As for the unfortunate Players who were assigned to the opposing side of a competitive instance dungeon, none would dare challenge him. Perhaps in the beginning, some idiots may have wanted to try and prove their strength or test their luck against him. In the end, however, they simply – using their own blood – made the name Osgiliath more famous. Thankfully, the number of those idiotic Players is small… even if they were to fail to complete their quest, even if it meant entering a punishment instance dungeon, their rate of survival was not zero. On the contrary, attacking Osgiliath meant a 100% chance of dying.

“Does this… remind you of anything?”

Miao Yan then raised her head to look at Chen Xiaolian.

“Me.” Chen Xiaolian extended a finger to point at himself and smiled. “It is just like the Japan mythology instance dungeon that I just participated in, right?”

“Correct.” Miao Yan nodded. “Although I am not from the same era as Osgiliath, according to the records from the Players that were from the same era as him, their experience of joining the same instance dungeons as him was very similar to that of the instance dungeon you just completed just now.

“As for Osgiliath’s equipment and skills, there are not much records about them. The only thing we know is that he would always wear a set of metal armour engraved with the picture of a flaming tulip.

“Due to that, the other Players came to call him… Duke Tulip.”

“In other words, he must be like me, someone who had mastered the world source code… at least, part of it.” Chen Xiaolian thought about it.

By relying on the Exchange Menu in the system and the rewards from clearing instance dungeons alone, there was no way that Players or Awakened ones could reach that level of strength. At best, they would only become as strong as the leaders of Zero City.

To be able to regard instance dungeons as nothing, in Chen Xiaolian’s opinion, only the old monsters like Mr. San, Shen and the others could do that.

In other words, one had to have mastered part of the source code power or had made contact with the Oddity.

“One day, Osgiliath suddenly disappeared,” Miao Yan continued.

“There was no real world connection between Players in the Upper Plane, but as more time passed, the other Players began to notice that it had been a long time since anyone met Osgiliath in an instance dungeon.

“Normally, the sudden disappearance of Players is a very normal thing. A highly difficult instance dungeon would often end up killing all the participants, wiping out entire guilds. No one would know about it. But Osgiliath… no one believed that he would die inside an instance dungeon. That was simply impossible.

“After some more time had passed, the system suddenly issued an all-out summon, forcing practically all the Players online. Even the Players with high-level Exclusive Accounts were not exempted.

“With the exception of those who had only just became Players, rookies who were so weak they were almost negligible, 95% of the Players were forced to login to the game.”

After saying that, Miao Yan paused. Looking at Chen Xiaolian, she continued, “You should already know what happened after that, no?”

“It matches what Shen said.” Chen Xiaolian nodded. “The Players must have been summoned to attack the first GM who turned traitor.”

“Yes.” Miao Yan sighed softly. “The Players never appeared ever again. It was as though they had disappeared into thin air.

“The Player side took a serious hit. The only ones remaining were the rookies that the Development Team did not even bother to summon.

“As for the Development Team, for a long time after that, they did not issue any more summons.

“After a very long time, the instance dungeon was reopened again. One by one, people were summoned. But when they entered the Lower Plane, they were shocked to find that the entire world had changed. Not a single thing remained the same.

“The entire Lower Plane had been reset.

“As none of the Players – who were forcibly summoned – managed to return, no one knew what happened in the Lower Plane back then.

“Therefore, the small fries who were not summoned, due to how weak they were, could only make random guesses.

“Some said that a virus had appeared in the Lower Plane and Osgiliath and the other Players were devoured. In order to wipe out the virus, the Development Team had no choice but to reset the entire Lower Plane.

“Some said that, due to a bug in an instance dungeon, Osgiliath became a BOSS. And so, the system summoned the Players to go kill him but none survived the fight.

“Some said that Osgiliath found a loophole in the system and became the God of the Lower Plane and that those Players had been summoned to fight him.

“Naturally, those were all speculations without any evidence to back them up.

“And I, am the first Player to find out the truth.”

“Not necessarily… the complete truth.” Chen Xiaolian frowned.

“After seeing Osgiliath’s tombstone here, there are instead more doubts. The sequence of events… it looks like there are some issues with it.”

“What issues?” Miao Yan did not understand.

“According to you, the one known as Osgiliath possessed a strength that exceeded the restrictions placed by the laws of the system. The only things capable of endowing him such power are the Oddity and the angel wings.

“However, the angel wings are part of the temporary bodies used by the Development Team. The Oddity, on the other hand, was something that the first GM took out from the inceptive template. All of that happened before the first refresh.

“In other words, back when Osgiliath obtained the power that surpassed the laws of the system, there were no Oddity or angel wings in our world.

“If so… just how did he obtain that power?

“And, what role did he play in the first GM’s betrayal?”

“When you put it that way, the sequence of events does seem wrong.” Miao Yan bit her lower lip as she considered it before slowly nodding.

“However… that is all I know. Now, Osgiliath is already dead and all we can see is a tombstone. It cannot speak. Looks like our hard work in finding this place was all in vain.”

“But… even if he is dead, there should be at least a second person here. Or rather, there was a second person here.” Chen Xiaolian furrowed his brows. “Who set up this tombstone for him otherwise? Surely not himself? We should try to look around some more…”

“No need to look. There is nothing else here but this tombstone.”

Without warning, an unfamiliar male voice suddenly rang out from behind him.

“Another thing. You guessed it right. I had indeed erected the tombstone for myself.”

Shocked, Chen Xiaolian and Miao Yan promptly turned around to look for the source of the voice behind them.

A man stood quietly behind them. They didn’t even know when he had appeared.

He appeared to be around thirty years old. He had a handsome countenance, like one who had just walked out from a painting. He wore a set of silvery-white metal armour and sported white, snow-like long hair that hung down his shoulders. He was also unarmed.

Shockingly, on the chest part of his armour was the engraving of a tulip surrounded by flames.