Chapter 306 - 260: The Truth of the 7-Day Divine Descent (2)

The man had been the one to solve all the truly core theoretical and technical problems.

She only knew how bold and immense the plan was, a true rarity in the entire world of esoteric academia.

It involved gathering twelve Heirs, each sealing an abnormal power, all at once. It even required the use of the most secret power of the Sole Throne.

Every single element was enough to shake the very foundations of the world; it could be described as the exercise of the highest form of authority.

In her memory, the time they spent together—refining the plan’s details, searching for historical ruins to convert into altars, analyzing and upgrading their control over the Heirs—had been the happiest days of her life. It was a time that bordered on perfection.

But then she became pregnant. When she unexpectedly discovered that the child in her belly was the very first person slated to enter the plan, she broke down. She went to him, screaming and fighting, having had no idea the Divine Descent Plan would involve her own child.

But his reply was filled with despair: "It was all decided by a cryptic logic!"

"We only perfected the plan. The truly suitable vessels were all determined by the machine’s calculations."

"We can’t change this outcome. The matters involved are far too great..."

"The Divine Descent Plan is founded on the Heirs, so not a single one of the twelve can be missing."

"In the past, the Heirs were imprisoned separately across the globe and replaced every thirty years. If a minor accident occurred, it could be prevented or dealt with in time. But this time, all twelve Heirs must be transferred simultaneously. There is no room for even the slightest error."

"Therefore, you must trust the calculations. Since the machine chose the child in your womb, he cannot escape his fate..."

"..."

Ms. Shen refused to accept it. Obeying a mother’s instinct, she fled.

She escaped to Qinggang and gave birth to her child alone.

She doted on him, but always with a heart full of fear.

Sometimes, looking at him, she would feel he was fated not to be her child, but a product of some plan.

She would feel that this child had destroyed her perfect life, and she would hate him for it.

Then she would remember that it was for his sake that she had abandoned that life of perfect Understanding, and so she would love him.

This fear persisted for ten long years. Then she was found again—or rather, she had never truly escaped at all.

The ones who found her were the Circuit Knights.

These men, gaunt and wraith-like, brought her terrible news:

The man had already been punished.

After Ms. Shen fled, he had actually tried to alter the machine’s calculations to remove the child from the plan. As a result, the Ancient Nobles no longer trusted him and had thrown him into a secret prison.

However, the Divine Descent Plan had already incurred too great a cost to be terminated. Therefore, the Ancient Nobles chose Ms. Shen to continue executing the plan in exchange for a chance for him to live.

Since Ms. Shen had once been his assistant, she was the one who best understood the plan’s details.

Whatever the true intentions of the Ancient Nobles were, they used this reason to extend an invitation to Ms. Shen.

Ms. Shen broke down. She went mad, wailed, and even wanted to resist, but she had no real choice.

A gun was pointed at her child.

So, she agreed.

Perhaps ten years of fear had made her weary of her current life. She chose to give up the child and choose the man.

She took over Abyssal Studio, received authorization for that mysterious machine, and began to move everything forward.

Acting under the name of Abyssal Studio, she found certain people in Qinggang and signed contracts of silence, establishing Qinggang as the Land of Divine Descent.

Those who willingly signed contracts with her and agreed to cooperate with the plan received a promise from the Ancient Nobles.

Upon its success, they would receive noble titles, directly enfeoffed as Barons.

After that, the machine’s calculations continued to select suitable children, who were then sent to the designated locations.

Finally, the plan was initiated.

And then, the plan failed.

No one knew what happened. Inexplicably, a child escaped. It was her child.

And just like that, the entire plan ground to a halt.

Or rather, the plan entered an undefinable state, somewhere between failure and success.

Eleven Heirs had successfully appeared, but one position was inexplicably vacant.

On the surface, the cause of the failure was certainly the child who escaped—her child. It seemed that simply sending him back would allow the plan to resume, but things were not so simple.

When a screw suddenly pops out of a precisely running machine, the solution is never as simple as just throwing the screw back in.

They needed to find the cause.

More importantly, it would have been one thing if the plan had been declared a complete failure, but it hadn’t.

All the data indicated everything was normal, yet the progress bar was stuck, flickering erratically with phantom-like changes.

The Divine Descent hadn’t failed; it had merely stopped.

This outcome left everyone, including her, bewildered.

They reran the calculations again and again. They used that super-dimensional machine to scan and monitor the child, even going so far as to extract all his memories, making him forget everything before the age of ten.

However, aside from causing the super-dimensional machine "Miss Ai" to crash once, this yielded no results.