Cursed Immortality

On the third day after Jacob's contact with Star Lord, within the hidden base of the Star Hackers, all the Nine Anonymous Stars were gathered around a mechanical table in a huge futuristic lab.

On this table, many pieces were put together like a jigsaw puzzle, making a humanoid figure with tattered skin.

"Just how much power is required to turn a Soul Puppet into this state?" An anonymous star exclaimed in its static voice.

"Anonymous9, are you really worried about this, among all other things? Shouldn't we be worried about our only lead going into the wind with this undeniable proof that Faceless Ancient was just a scapegoat to fool us all?" Another static voice rang, filled with angry frustration.

"Indeed, I agreed with Anonymous8. Now that Faceless Ancient has signed the Zodiac Oath Contract crafted by Anarchy (the Artificial intelligence of ATLAS) without any loopholes, and this Soul Puppet and the traces of Life Signal on it also match Free Sword's, what should we do?" Another Anonymous Star coldly questioned, making the atmosphere gloomy to the extreme.

They all turned towards the dark spot around the table where the black silhouette of Star Lord was sitting silently.

Just as in Star Lord's agreement with Jacob that day, Star Lord again sent two men to Jacob's estate, where Jacob was waiting to receive them. Star Lord even put out a valuable physical Zodiac Oath Contract, already drafted by the AI Anarchy. It was almost as powerful as the SAAI, and had Jacob sign it right in front of them and even record it.

After Jacob had signed the contract without raising any objection, nothing seemed to happen to him after signing it, and this already made the Star Lord believe in Jacob's lies by 80%.

Afterward, Jacob handed him the pieces of Soul Puppet he had destroyed and was just keeping for research purposes. He was glad he didn't dispose of them, so his alibi became even more solid.

Now, after a full day of scanning and all the research done by the Star Lord, there was no doubt that Jacob was telling them the truth without any loophole or scheme. In other words, Jacob was a victim of Free Sword's malicious scheme and turned into a scapegoat to mislead the ATLAS.

At least, this is what everyone in this room was thinking right now. Truth be told, they all felt humiliated and raged since they were all tricked by 'Free Sword', and he even saw through their trick that they put in the Offender Ring.

If Star Lord hadn't approached Jacob and given him the opportunity to 'confess,' they would've exhausted tremendous resources and manpower by going after Jacob in full force. Meanwhile, Free Sword would've been laughing at their stupidity.

"We are bested by Free Sword this time. Not only us, but the whole Unique Plains!" Star Lord finally spoke as the temperature in the lab dropped greatly.

He was really enraged at this moment, "Not only did he use this trick to deliver the Offender Ring to Faceless Ancient to mislead us, but he probably used another Soul Puppet to mislead the Dark Beings and other factions as well.

"I once thought that Free Sword was just lucky to get the key and even able to escape that day by mysterious means. But now, I think this guy's scheme ran far deeper than we can even think of, and right now, we have again reached the starting point.

"Still, we got lucky not to chase after a scapegoat and waste our time, unlike the three factions. Since this guy likes to play in the shadows, we'll just have to illuminate everything and drag him out.

"Here are your new orders: Keep observing Faceless Ancient without antagonizing him. For some reason, I don't want to believe him, but facts are facts. Still, keep an eye on him.

"Other than that, we will use our full forces to search the Ocean Races and track down the Ocean Oracle. This is the only way to identify that sly vermin now!" He ordered without hesitation.

"Ocean Oracle?! Isn't that just a myth?" One of the Anonymous Stars exclaimed with disbelief.

Star Lord replied, "It's not a myth. It's just that we didn't have enough reason to provoke the Ocean Races, especially when Ocean Oracle is rumored to be the ruler of the Ocean Races and revered by them like a God. We don't need to go too far; as long as we can buy a signal divination, price is not an issue."

"But the Ocean Races are at the depth of the Star Ocean, and that place is known as the No Return Zone for every land dweller. Just the pressure there is not something our people could handle, much less mesh with those water brain fish that see land dwellers as their mortal enemies." Anonymous2 gloomily stated this since it was absolutely true.

Star Lord wasn't stomped by this as he coldly looked at the Nine Anonymous Stars, sending chills down their spine as they had a very bad feeling about this, and Star Lord's next words proved it.

"That's why I'm sending you all there. I don't think eight intermediate stages and one perfect stage beyond unique rank experts have any problem handling little pressure and 'water brains' and searching a single 'fish,' right?"

---

Jacob stood in front of a furnace, monitoring the molding process of a few powerful metals, without any clues that he had just compelled Star Hackers to stir the hornet's nest known as the Ocean Races.

Even if he knew, Jacob wasn't going to pay them any heed since he had already 'cleared' his name and brought himself valuable time to continue to grow. He wasn't going to believe those guys will stop paying attention to him, this action of his will only made them stop taking extreme actions.

But if he showed any suspicion, they would come at him with full force. However, Jacob wasn't worried since he knew that by the time they realized it or he had made his move, it would be too late, and no one would be able to stop him.

He looked at a machine filled with runic markings. At this moment, all those runes were glowing, and in the center of this magic machine was a transparent glass compartment.

At this moment, an integral octonion (polytope) condensed by dense magic power from 1000 unique magic gems continued to compress and glow like a small white sun in this glass compartment.

Jacob's eyes glowed as he looked at the finger-nail-sized polytope.

'I never thought I could make the Quantum Atomic Reaction with magic energy without going through the trouble of building a nuclear power plant first.

'Who could've considered the magic energy also contained active radiation that I'd never heard about before? Still, I was only able to build this magic machine because of the space runes and after blasting myself tens of thousands of times in the nightmare realm.

'With just a little bit of error, the Dark City will turn into nothing but history…'

Jacob was somewhat fearful but mostly excited as he watched his creation become a reality from a dream!