Inside a magnificent golden palace, Krishna sat atop the royal throne at the head of the hall, looking calmly at the one-eyed raven in front of her, which had a beige scroll clamped in its beak.
Behind the raven, several figures knelt on one knee.
The black, one-eyed raven flapped its wings and crowed smugly. "Rejoice, everyone. Calling upon me, Loki, for help was the wisest decision you've ever made."
"Shut up." Krishna gave Loki a sidelong glance.
"Okay."
Loki immediately shut its beak.
Only after Loki had quieted down did Krishna reach out and take the scroll from its beak. She didn't unroll it. Instead, she asked, "What did you find? Have you figured out what caused Ouroboros to suffer such heavy losses?"
The three heads of the intelligence department, excluding Loki, exchanged glances.
One of them, a blue-haired middle-aged man, stepped forward and knelt on one knee. "Your Majesty, we've gotten to the bottom of it."
His jaw tightened as he continued. "According to the compiled intelligence, everything began when several Sky Cities controlled by the Babylonian Pantheon were destroyed by an unknown force. Before the defenders died, they sent a final warning to the Heavenly Army regarding the Last Embryo."
"Last Embryo?"
Krishna frowned slightly, clearly finding something questionable about that explanation, but she said nothing and waited for him to continue.
"Yes." The intelligence chief took a breath. "Because the matter involved the Last Embryo, the Heavenly Army dispatched the Creator Deva Brahma to the lower layers to investigate."
"And during Brahma's investigation..." The intelligence chief struggled slightly over his wording. "Lady Anat happened to be passing through the 57155 Outer Gate base while carrying out another mission. She was attacked by an unknown force and is presumed to have been annihilated."
"Before Lady Anat died, Brahma detected traces left behind by her battle with the attacker. This ultimately caused the intelligence concerning 'The Purge of the Exploration Communities' to leak. And that allowed the Heavenly Army to obtain other information about us."
"A Three-Digit was killed, critical intelligence was leaked, and I'm only hearing about it now." Krishna let out a cold laugh. "How interesting."
It hadn't even been five hundred years since she had delegated authority to those union leaders, had it?
And in just five hundred years, they had managed to create this mess.
Worst of all, not one of those bastards had reported it.
A Three-Digit had been lost, and nobody had reported it? Absurd.
Krishna was so furious that she actually laughed. The scroll in her hand crumpled with a series of sharp cracks.
With her Two-Digit Spirit Rank, obtaining information directly from the Little Garden central core was effortless.
In an instant, she had confirmed the truth of the intelligence.
The reason behind Ouroboros's devastating losses really was something this trivial.
At that thought, Krishna closed her eyes. "Leave."
The three intelligence chiefs immediately looked as though they had been pardoned from death.
After repeatedly expressing their gratitude, they hurriedly rose and left.
Krishna kept her eyes closed as she spoke, "Who was Anat's direct superior?"
Three-Digit operatives like Anat, who had withdrawn their forces and gone into hiding in the lower layers, generally had a designated superior.
Whenever Ouroboros carried out a high-level operation, they used a three-person team.
One person carried out the mission.
One provided support.
And one served as the direct superior, remaining outside the operation itself so they could handle the aftermath.
The three were meant to act independently while keeping an eye on one another.
But Anat, the operative herself, had been assassinated, and neither her direct superior nor her support partner had reported it.
That was already a very serious problem.
Anat belonged to the Second Union's direct team. But still, as the leader of the First Union, Krishna should have received the news immediately.
The fact that she hadn't was clearly an internal discipline issue.
Krishna had already begun wondering whether her control over the three Ouroboros Unions had somehow gone wrong.
Or perhaps those people who had joined Ouroboros while harboring all sorts of ulterior motives, both openly and secretly, were no longer satisfied with merely being alliance leaders.
Were they actually planning an internal rebellion?
At this point, Loki gave a quiet chuckle. "Anat's direct superior is the Punishment Angel, Kushiel. As it happens, she returned to the upper layers to report on her duties on the very day Anat was killed."
"'As it happens'?" Krishna opened her eyes slightly. "How much of a coincidence was it?"
"They left almost back-to-back," said Loki
"Um..."
Krishna immediately ruled out the Lord of Cross as a suspect.
Most likely, something involving the Lord of Cross had simply been exploited by the other side.
"But whoever did it should have been someone familiar with Anat, and someone who had a grudge against her. Someone like..... Algol?" Krishna's expression became slightly strange. "That vain woman actually reached her hands into my territory?"
She had dealt with the infamous Demon Star before. But based on her outward appearance, Krishna seriously wondered whether the woman even had a brain.
If Algol was behind this, though, Krishna had no trouble believing it. After all, when it came to crazy people, anything was possible.
Loki, who had been listening beside her, was stunned. "That Demon Star personally attacked Anat?"
Then he immediately thought of something. "Was it to reclaim Ishtar's Spirit Rank?"
Krishna tapped one finger lightly against the table. "She wouldn't have done it herself. She's currently under the surveillance of the Twin Goddesses."
Loki sucked in a sharp breath.
He had heard long ago that the Twin Goddesses had a great interest in the Star Spirits among the Two-Digits, and had always wanted to bring every Star Spirit under their control.
Hearing that Algol was being watched by the Twin Goddesses immediately brought that rumor to mind.
In an instant, the Loki who had been so lively a moment ago lowered its head and became the picture of obedience.
Krishna frowned deeply. "If Algol can't act personally, could she have sent one of her old subordinates? But every one of those people is under the Cross Pantheon's surveillance."
Krishna had personally witnessed the incident back then.
The Cross Pantheon had tried to win Algol over with the Holy Mother position, only to trick her in the end. After that, the two sides had subsequently fallen out.
They weren't exactly mortal enemies, but the Cross had never relaxed its surveillance of these potential threats.
If any of them made a move, there was no way the Cross wouldn't react.
As for Ryo, Krishna had considered him too.
But she quickly dismissed the possibility.
To assassinate Anat, Ryo Yagami simply wasn't enough.
He would need to be at the Three-Digit Legendary level at least.
Of course, the more likely culprit would be an old Three-Digit Legendary powerhouse.
As someone who had climbed her way up from the Three-Digit level herself, Krishna knew exactly how enormous the gap could be between the strongest and weakest members of the Three-Digit Legendary realm.
That allowed her to establish a fairly clear lower limit for the strength of whoever had killed Anat.
And judging from Ryo's performance when he defeated Amun-Ra, he was still nowhere near that level.
Unless...
Could Ryo Yagami have been holding back when he fought Amun?
Krishna had seen Four-Digit existences break through the usual limits and reach extraordinary levels in a short period of time.
But monsters who could reach that kind of Four-Digit level and then immediately rival a Three-Digit Legendary without any period of accumulation?
She had encountered only a handful in her entire life.
And those few were all reincarnations of Two-Digit existences, much like Buddha striving to perfect his Authority of Samsara.
So could Ryo also be the reincarnation of some Two-Digit?
No, impossible. Absolutely impossible.
The seventeen Two-Digits had already been accounted for. Even the two Three-Digit rule-breaker existences were currently active.
The probability of this was effectively zero.
"She didn't do it herself. It wasn't one of her old subordinates. And it wasn't that little brat from Arcadia." Krishna narrowed her eyes. "Don't tell me..."
She suddenly remembered the incident that had caused such a commotion because of Algol some time ago.
"Don't tell me the Tricksters are real?!"
Was there actually a hidden organization in Little Garden that even Krishna didn't know about?
Then who was supporting them?
Krishna carefully went through all the Two-Digits she knew.
But the more she thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed.
How had those old rivals managed to hide the creation of such a faction from her?
A Three-Digit Legendary was already a regional overlord even in the upper layers.
Someone like that would inevitably have countless eyes on them.
And whichever faction they joined would have to be registered.
That was why, from the very beginning, Krishna had assumed the "Tricksters" people talked about was nothing more than a joke.
But now...
Krishna's expression became one of disbelief.
Then she sank into deep thought.
Beside her, Loki kept its head lowered for a long while.
Eventually, it heard Krishna speak. "Loki, issue a mission to every Ouroboros faction in the lower layers..."
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