<h4>Chapter 522: Prophecy</h4>


    While Rnd was happily preparing his new magic spell, the hastily assembled adventuring team outside the ruins was now fully prepared to set out. At this time, the adventuring team leader Barton finally told everyone their goal and reason for being here.


    Right now, in their temporary campground, Barton was vividly talking to everyone. He was both boosting everyone’s morale as well as assigning tasks. All the mercenaries andpanions gathered around him were looking forward to the fight they expected.


    “Our mission this time is incredibly important. It’s highly risky, but alsoes with great rewards. As long as we seed, we’ll basically cut off the Undead Cmity. This will absolutely make all of us into famed heroes. None of us will ever have to worry about the next meal ever again.”


    Mercenaries were no volunteers. Talking about ideals with them would be a waste of time. Only the most practical benefits would possibly motivate them. But, that still wouldn’t be enough. No matter how high the rewards, no mercenary would be willing to undertake a certain death mission. One would have to be alive to enjoy the rewards, after all.


    Currently, if you only looked at the surface, attacking the heart of the undead camp would definitely be a certain death mission. These mercenaries had been willing toe along half because of the promised munificent rewards, but also half because they believed that the well-known veteran mercenary Old Barton wouldn’t be so idiotic to go on a certain death mission.


    “...ording to what that person told me, we don’t need to fight the undead head on. Our main opponents will be the metallic toys inside the ruins. And, our goal is to bring my daughter to a special location inside those ruins. You don’t need to understand the specifics, because you might not even understand even if I exin to you. You all only need to do what you’re best at—opening up the path with your weapons!”


    “That’s right, as long as we find the connection point, we can reim the right to control the Sky Tower. All you need to do is bring me and this little girl to that location. I’ll take care of the rest.”


    Tid added that as an addendum. Originally, Rnd had wanted the great engineer to stay behind and help defend the city, but then thought about how this mission would probably be impossible to aplish without Tid’s help. In the end, Rnd could only let Tide along.


    “Rx, I won’t be a burden on everyone.”


    Tid chuckled as he said this, and even made a pose to sh his muscles. He received a round ofughter that the mercenaries tried their best to hide.


    Of course, nobody really thought that Tid would be a burden on everyone else, since he was a famed mythic hero of this generation. In fact, everyone trusted his character and abilities far more than that terrifying and abnormal-seeming elf-form dragon lich that came along.


    It was also because Tid came along that Barton had a much easier time of convincing all the mercenaries to sign up for this mission. Such a famous personage wasing along, which meant to everyone else that this definitely wouldn’t be a certain death mission. And, Tid had a good reputation, which greatly helped to improve everyone’s morale. It even made everyone feel as they were going to be responsible for saving the world.


    “Now then, allow me to exin. Our main goal is to reach the very top of the Sky Tower. But since this Sky Tower has a unique design, that actually means the deepest undergroundyer. And even though the high-level undead aren’t in the tower, the mechanical guardians will be quite dangerous. But, that’s also a chance for us. I have a n. First, we need to find arge mechanical guardian that’s by itself...”


    The n was quite an old-fashioned one. The main forces would strike from the front and attract the enemies’ attention, while a smaller team would raid the most important location. But, clichés were actually quite useful inbat sometimes—as long as they were practical. Rnd would act as the main force in front to attract the undead’s attention, with the goal of pressuring Conservation enough to have her call for reinforcements from the ruins. That would naturally weaken the defenses of the ruins in the rear even further.


    And, with a Haletdam generation expert like Tid in the adventuring team, that would make it far easier for everyone to explore this Haletdam generation ruin.


    As Tid exined the n to everyone, he also paid extra attention to the bald old man who was carefully watching over his daughter. This time, Tid was not only acting as an advisory expert for the adventuring team. Rnd had also given him the task of assessing Old Barton’s abilities.


    ‘Allow me to see if you’re worthy of Rnd’s high opinion of you. If you want to be a core member of his new Dawn n, the current you is still far too insufficient. An army’s leader can’t be so overly concerned with familial love... Still, this is really strange. Why is that Rnd can always randomly find people that are so capable to work for him? And, Rnd’s never even misjudged a single person! Are skilled heroes somon in the world? Is he really that excellent a judge of character and abilities? Or, are the rumors that Rnd has a prophetic ability actually real?’


    Although Rnd had previously brought out his strange pictures and prophecies of Armageddon, Tid hadn’t truly believed them. That was because pictures and other magical images could all be faked. And as Tid was a pure science-believing engineer and former soul research expert, the more he researched this topic, the more he refused to believe that it would be possible to see through the future with so many factors of karma at work.


    As Tid considered the ethereal Concepts of Fate and Prophecy, he felt very confused despite having received the inherited memories of a Haletdam generation schr. It could still be somewhat exined by saying that Rnd had outstanding insight with how the random novices he picked all grew up into mythic heroes. However, Rnd had mysteriously given his full support to Olivia and Tid back when they were nothing but pure young novices. That was incredibly difficult to exin.


    In fact, Rnd had given Olivia and Tid so much financial support that was all wasted at first with constantly failed experiments. Olivia and Tid themselves felt quite depressed at not being able to aplish anything, yet Rnd had apletely rxed attitude about everything. It was as if he had one hundred percent confidence that they would seed. But, for any researcher to aplish anything, luck would be even more important than ability. With how sly Rnd always was, his confidence in the novices Olivia and Tid seemedpletely unfounded to Tid himself.


    ‘It’s the same this time as well. Rnd directly told me that Old Barton has the leadership ability to lead his future army and the ability to be an incredible hero in the future. Yet, Barton is clearly just an old mercenary who has yet to aplish anything noteworthy in his long life. And, he’s too old, so his best growth period is long past him. It’s absolutely inconceivable what Rnd sees in Barton. I don’t think it can be exined in any way apart from prophecy.’


    Although Tid wondered about this, he had no intention of directly asking Rnd about it. Although prophecy was something incredibly difficult to understand, and a person with the ability to control fate made him feel somewhat helpless, it was also reassuring to have a prophet who could always foresee victory on his side. And, the most important part was...


    ‘None of us are following Rnd because of his prophecies or because we think it will lead us to a glorious future. In fact, I always thought that he was just scamming others back in the day when he kept prophesizing about an Armageddon. Dark cults always use the same tactics...’


    Tid shook his head and tossed such thoughts to the back of his mind. Rnd’s crazed prophecies from back in the day had already been transformed into reality. His prophecy about Armageddon was now a real threat. His seemingly empty ideals about creating Hell had already been actualized. As for Rnd’spanions that shared the same path and ideals as him, some had parted ways, and some had died. But even more people gathered together to help transform Rnd’s ideals into reality. Since Rnd had already lived up to what he’d promised, what did it matter if he had a few secrets?


    ‘...At the very least, we’ll all believe in him and walk down this path together with him.’


    Tid thought that to himself, and didn’t need to say it out loud. The young Tid had now grown up to be a famed mythic hero. Yet, he still had the same wish as before, wanting a better future for himself and his family. And in the current day, everything that the Nortnds (and Hell Faction) had done was all to make the world a slightly better ce so that ordinary people could lead better lives.


    But right now, the person that Tid was thinking of as a prophet was currently dealing with his own frustrations.


    “You’re supposed to be the Creator Goddess of Order, which is like the GM of an online game. Can’t youe up with a new prophecy? The world is now so far off track from the game’s story that all the old prophecies are useless now.”


    [This means that you’ve done an excellent job. However, new prophecies will be impossible. Actually, my prophecies are only calctions on what the most likely oue is. These calctions use my abilities as a Creator Goddess over thews of Time and Space to predict what will happen in the future. Making such a prophecy has a tremendous cost associated with it, limiting the number of times I can do so. It will be absolutely impossible for me with my current strength. And you can analyze from the foundational workings that even if I was at my strongest, I still wouldn’t be capable of making a new prophecy with how far off track Fate has be.]


    As expected, my System rejected my request for a new prophecy. But, upon careful consideration, Astrya had no reason to lie to me. Everything she said waspletely logical.


    “Just like the stories said, prophets are unable to prophesize about themselves? Then, doesn’t that mean that all prophets are under the restriction of being unable to do anything themselves? Wouldn’t that make their prophecies into useless garbage...?”


    I felt like I suddenly understood the nature of prophecies much better. I definitely didn’t understand an ethereal concept like prophecies that could predict the future. However, if prophecies were actually a logical calction of the future, with analysis backed up by the foundationalws of Time and Space to help make the prophecy 100% urate, that was far more understandable.


    Since prophecies were only a calction of what was most likely to happen in the future, I nowpletely understood why the “game walkthrough” that she gave me didn’t have any information about me or Karwenz. That was because this prophecy had been made by the Creator Goddess of Order herself, and the moment that she made this prophecy, what really happened was destined to veer off from what the prophecy predicted.


    That was why, logically speaking, there was no such thing as a 100% urate prophecy in the world. As long as the prophecy was made, and as long as someone heard the prophecy, the future would definitely be changed. That was because the prophecy would never include the prophecy itself.


    And since a prophecy was a calction made using thews of Time and Space in aputer-like fashion, then the first variable would be my System that made the prophecy, and the second variable would be me who heard the prophecy. I then interfered with the lives of others included in the prophecy, making them into a new variable. With so many variables umting, the power required for making a new prophecy would multiply exponentially. This was the foundational reason why my System told me a new prophecy would be impossible.


    In that case, Astrya’s prophecies could likely only be used once every few millennia, and only after all the major characters in the previous prophecy had died. This was actually a weak ability that only appeared strong.


    “Tsk, this cheat ability is one-time use only and has already been used up. So useless.”


    [You should be satisfied with what you got already. Would you prefer that Cynthia who attached herself to Karwenz had this ability instead? That would truly make Karwenz into the harem protagonist of this story. Would you like to see that instead?]


    Now that I thought about, Karwenz’s character story was that his parents, friends, women, and country had all perished. He then killed all his enemies as he leveled up, including even the Gods. The deeper his grudge, the faster he would level up. He really did seem like the typical protagonist of a Xianxia novel. Still, I felt that it wouldn’t be the right style for this story.


    I shook my head and gave up on the idea of asking my System for a new game walkthrough. In fact, I didn’t really expect it in the first ce. After all, I hadn’t relied on this so-called prophecy to achieve what I had today.


    And, I even secretly heaved a sigh of relief. This wasn’t because I didn’t trust my System, but rather because prophecies and Fate were concepts that made me feel uneasy.


    If everything was already predestined, that would feel like aplete denial of everyone’s efforts. It was far more realistic that prophecies were actually superputer-like calctions.


    But, right now wasn’t the time for me to be thinking about prophecies.


    My next spell was sessful. Although it would have been nice to have a certain ice queen singing “Let it go!” as the spell created an ice castle, the spell was supported by plenty of mana, an ice magic grandmaster, ice fairies, and the exquisite design of a Gold Elf princess. Soon, a beautiful and ethereal castle of ice appeared in front of everyone.


    This ice castle was decorated in the typical elven style—ridiculously opulent. However, the main castle facilities seemed to be designed for giants. At the very least, the mega stone catapults were sorge that even their snowball ammunition was taller than ten meters. It was obvious that no ordinary humans could wield such weapons.


    The ice castle’s area just happened topletely fit all of Starwood City within it. The main defensive feature of the ice castle, the castle walls, stood more than seventy meters tall. It would be impossible for any giant other than a Titan to cross over such walls.


    I wasn’t crazy enough to enchant these castle walls with my special [Hibernation Chill], as that would kill all the ordinary people within Starwood City. Still, this frozen ice castle wasn’t exactly easy for the ordinary people to handle due to the low temperature. The only part that made it slightly better for them was the fact that it was currently in between summer and autumn, so the base temperature was still alright.


    And now, I finally took off the fake beard I had been using as Karo rather than Rnd. Since I had done so many obvious things already, there was no more need to attempt at concealing my identity. Not only that, I felt that it would be rude of me to continue covering my face as I felt an Undead Emperor to the south of me with her attention on me.


    “Long time no see. How have you been, Zero?”