"What?"
The name Jia Wood dropped like a stone. Everyone present stiffened in shock—
even Jia Wood himself.
"You mean… I'm the traitor?" he said.
Bing Fire's gaze locked onto him, sharp as a blade. "As much as I wanted to believe Ren Water was the traitor, I'm not foolish enough to sabotage the team just to satisfy my own bias."
"I still have an audio recording. Want to hear it?"
"Before his death, Geng Metal screamed your name."
"And every time someone dies, you're always the first to show up. Why is it that you're always conveniently on missions near the crime scenes?"
"Besides, Geng Metal may have been blunt, but in terms of strength, no one doubted him. Aside from you, Jia Wood, I can't think of a single person capable of going toe-to-toe with him one-on-one."
"Don't you think that's a bit too coincidental?"
Bing Fire crouched down again, rummaging through Geng Metal's corpse until he pulled out Petrified.
"Of course," he continued, raising the object, "it doesn't matter what you say or what I say. This will decide it."
"Jia Wood—were the deaths of Geng Metal and Yi Wood tied to you? Yes or no."
Jia Wood clenched his jaw. "No."
At once, Petrified glowed red, its surface heating with accusation.
Bing Fire set it down between them. "Now the truth is obvious, isn't it?"
"Wait—this is too presumptive!" Ji Earth cut in.
"Jia Wood has been with me the entire time. We were on a different mission. How could he possibly have slipped away to kill Geng Metal and Yi Wood?"
"I said it before: your word doesn't matter, and mine doesn't either. Petrified will judge," Bing Fire replied coolly, his eyes sliding toward Ren Water.
"To make sure there isn't more than one traitor, we'll test everyone, one by one."
"Ren Water, did you have any hand—directly or indirectly—in the deaths of Geng Metal and Yi Wood? Answer yes or no."
"…No."
This time, Petrified remained still, its glow fading.
Bing Fire clapped his hands once, smiling. "Perfect. The person I most suspected isn't guilty after all."
He turned to Ji Earth, questioning him the same way.
The result was the same: Petrified did not react.
"Case closed," Bing Fire declared. "Jia Wood is the one responsible for the deaths of Ding Fire, Geng Metal, and Yi Wood."
"What about the flashbang? Aren't we investigating who requested it?" Ji Earth pressed.
Bing Fire sneered. "He dared to use it and didn't even bother retrieving the casing. That means it can't be traced back to him."
"It could have been requisitioned under someone else's name and stolen, or hidden away by him through some trick. There are too many ways to cover the trail."
"In short, the grenade cannot be used as evidence."
"At best, its existence only proves one thing—that we have a traitor among us."
Bing Fire leveled his gaze at Jia Wood. "So. Do you have anything left to say?"
Jia Wood remained silent. He neither resisted nor offered a word in his defense.
Thus, the crowd escorted him back to headquarters.
Next, he would be handed over to the O5 Council for judgment.
...
The O5 Council convened in an emergency session.
The discovery of a traitor within the Heavenly Stems was a crisis too grave to ignore.
"No leniency. He struck at his comrades again and again—proof his mind has already been corrupted!"
"Jia Wood must be eliminated. Leave him alive, and the consequences will be disastrous."
"Disastrous consequences are the lesser concern. The greater threat is betrayal. If he defects to Chaos and hands over critical intelligence, who among us can bear that responsibility?"
"I disagree. Jia Wood has always been disciplined and principled. Passing judgment now is reckless."
"People have two faces. What you see is only what he allows you to see."
"I'm not excusing a traitor—but there are too many suspicious points in this case. To simply—"
"Enough. Our words mean nothing. The Deca belong to the Chief. Whatever the truth, it is not ours to decide."
Every eye turned toward the empty seat.
Zero had not appeared. He offered no explanation for his absence.
But as Kitsune's supreme commander—the Chief of the Cabinet of Elders—his authority was beyond question. Even absent, none dared challenge him, nor had the right to demand why.
At that moment, a projection shimmered to life in the chamber.
"News from the Cabinet: the Chief is unwell. He will not attend meetings in the coming days…"
"Anything further?"
"No."
"The Chief's silence… Perhaps this matter is not as simple as we thought."
"Then what is to be done?"
"First, confine Jia Wood. Judgment will wait until the Chief recovers."
"Yes. For now, that's our only option."
...
When the meeting broke, one council member quietly sought out the instructor who had trained the Deca.
They met in the cafeteria. The moment the instructor spotted him, he straightened and saluted.
"Good day, sir."
The council member waved it off. "No need for formality. Let's just talk."
"Of course. I'll tell you everything I know."
"I've heard you know the Deca well?"
"If that's your question, then yes—you've come to the right place. I've studied the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches for years. Ask what you will; there's nothing I don't know."
The council member smiled at his confidence. "Is that so? Then tell me—if a traitor were to emerge among the Deca, who would you say it is?"
"…I don't know." The instructor dropped his gaze, poking at his food.
The council member set down his chopsticks. "Don't tense up. I'm speaking hypothetically. You can answer freely."
The instructor's eyes flicked away. He shook his head. "I don't know."
But his manner did not resemble ignorance.
The council member's look deepened. "I'm not here to accuse you. This is only conversation. There's no need for restraint."
"So tell me—is it possible Jia Wood is the traitor?"
The instructor shifted uneasily, as though seated on needles. "I truly don't know."
The council member nodded. "Hmm. Then do you suspect Ren Water might be the insider? Didn't you once say Ren Water's fate was extremely ominous?"
The instructor traced idle circles on the tabletop with his chopsticks. "When it comes to fate, nothing is absolute. I'll speak only from my own perspective—it isn't objective truth."
"The fates of the Heavenly Stems are flawed by nature. Their combinations can bring balance."
"But that doesn't mean simply pairing two Stems immediately compensates their flaws."
"In truth, the process requires both practice and time. For example—if a male and female Heavenly Stem genuinely fall in love, that is one form of combination."
"And once united, their fates can begin to offset each other."
"Take Ding and Ren, for instance: they combine to form Wood."
"'Combine' is the process; 'form' is the result."
"Ding represents wealth, Ren represents patience. When these two combine, they create Wood, which symbolizes growth and virtue—evil transforming into righteousness."
"In practice, it means Ding Fire would become Ren Water's guide and direction, pulling him step by step toward the right path."
"And as Wood is born, it nourishes Fire—fueling it, giving it vitality. That is compensation born through union."
The council member raised his brows. "So intricate. Then in your view, did the two achieve that compensation?"
The instructor finally lifted his head. "If I'm not mistaken, yes—they did fall in love."
"You're saying Ren Water was influenced by Ding Fire, and walked onto the right path?"
"Fate is never still. It shifts endlessly. An ordinary man may grasp two or three turns of it, and even that is difficult. I know no more than that. Best not to press further." The instructor quickly finished his meal and rose, leaving.
The council member sat back, thoughtful.
"Two or three… not five?"
...
The gargoyle was transferred into the acquisition chamber. Following Elder Council protocol, it was confirmed as a primary listed entity—alive.
So the experiments began.
First test: durability.
Conclusion: nearly indestructible.
And because observation was required to keep it petrified, at least four D-class personnel had to rotate their stares at all times.
They then tested the scope of "observation."
Would surveillance count as staring?
The answer was no.
Thus, when the gargoyle was sealed alone in a chamber and watched only through cameras, it entered an "unobserved" state.
An unexpected change occurred.
The gargoyle shifted—stone skin dissolving into flesh and blood. It became a living creature once more.
In an instant it ripped the aluminum alloy door apart, shattering the acquisition lockdown.
Alarms screamed. Steel shutters slammed down. D-class personnel were dispatched to reestablish visual lock.
The gargoyle prowled freely. Its claws sliced through steel as if it were paper.
But before long, one of the D-class managed to catch its gaze.
At once, the gargoyle froze—petrified again.
Then the D-class spoke. His words were strange.
"Listen closely. Your power doesn't work on me. My ability is to nullify all abilities."
"Don't be startled. I'm here to save you. I'll lead you out of this place—but you'll have to trust me. Otherwise, you might as well prepare to rot here forever."
With that, he deliberately turned his eyes away.
The gargoyle un-petrified, returning to flesh and blood.
"You've come to save me. Who are you?"
"You'll know whatever you want—but first, we must leave this place. Listen carefully, I'll only say this once: you must trust me, or neither of us will make it out."
"Behind me is a device. Touch my back, and we'll teleport to a pre-set location in Asia."
"Hurry!"
The gargoyle darted behind him, pressing its palm to his back.
In an instant, a brilliant light burst forth, and the two vanished.
...
Asia, inside an abandoned factory.
The gargoyle studied the surroundings in awe. "Fascinating… is this technology fused with life?"
The D-class's pupils contracted, then expanded. His clothes and very form shifted in a breathtaking transformation.
He turned toward the gargoyle—and the gargoyle petrified again.
"…"
030 shifted his gaze elsewhere. The gargoyle revived from stone. "Your ability… truly unusual."
It spread its wings and perched on a crate. "Feels like a safeguard. But who are you? Why did you free me?"
Back still turned, 030 replied, "I'm like you. We both came from that place."
"If I'm not mistaken, you're 032, aren't you?"
"Then allow me to introduce myself. I am 030. You can call me Allos."
"Your real name?"
"False."
"I don't want anyone knowing it. Allos will do."
Allos…?
"Fine, whatever. Say what you came to say. I warned you before—I have nothing to give you, even if you saved me."
030—now Allos—had chosen the alias for no reason at all. He simply made it up.
"Before my purpose, one question: do you understand this world? Do you know who captured you?"
Allos had ripped the gargoyle straight out of Kitsune, causing a massive uproar inside the organization.
No one knew who he was—or how he had slipped inside.
The file on 030, The Lie Eater, was blank. And for good reason: Allos's ability could never be exposed.
If it ever was, it would be nullified.
No matter what he claimed to possess, it was always just one power:
A lie becoming reality.
Whether spoken to others—or to himself.
Thus, Allos had never once revealed the truth about his ability. That was his craft.
The craft of lies.
...
Half a month passed since 032's breakout.
The chaos ebbed, leaving only silence. Reports on Objects were nearly nonexistent.
Even the Chaos Insurgency had gone still. Zero of Kitsune had yet to surface. Jia Wood remained imprisoned.
The whole world's atmosphere felt uncanny.
"…It's too quiet."
"Quiet in a way that doesn't feel of this world."
"I think it's fine like this—if only it could last."
"The calm before the storm."
Another half-month slipped by. Then, on a silent afternoon, news dropped like a bomb.
An Object capable of granting all wishes had appeared.
The report exploded across every major and minor organization. Both Chaos Insurgency and Kitsune reeled in shock.
"Something like that… could it exist?"
No one knew who had leaked the story, yet everyone received it at once.
The claim: a Book of God had been stolen from the Library of the Exiled.
This Book could grant any wish.
Its location was even revealed—Antarctica.
From start to finish, the affair seemed utterly bizarre, yet none dared ignore it.
Real or fake, it demanded pursuit.
No one bothered to ask, what if it's false? What they feared was the opposite—that it wasn't.
If true, then this item could not be allowed to fall into anyone's hands.
They might scoff, but none would gamble against even a one-in-a-million chance.
Even if it was a trap, a pit dug by unseen hands, they had no choice but to leap in.
Kitsune suspected Chaos. Chaos suspected Kitsune.
But before either could move, one faction already had.
Serpent's Hand.
They seemed to have gotten the word first. While Kitsune and Chaos debated, Serpent's Hand had already made their move.
"Kitsune and Chaos have ruled the Manifest World too long. Their time is over."
"After this, the world will be ours."
Beneath lamplight, three elongated shadows stretched. One figure cradled books. Another gripped a blade-like relic. The last unfurled a pair of wings.
"The world will change from this moment on. From here, it will merge and transform."
"We will be free, unfettered—rebuilding the true Paradise."
"Everyone will awaken to wisdom. Everyone will become extraordinary."
"This tide cannot be stopped!"
"Such is fate's decree!"
...
A few days later, the Antarctic landing operation began.
Serpent's Hand arrived first. Kitsune followed close behind. Chaos Insurgency clung tight to Kitsune's shadow.
An armed helicopter roared overhead—until a shell fired from the sea obliterated it in midair.
Boom!
"Oh, beautiful! What do we call this one?!"
"Didn't HQ have a 'happy birthday'? Then this one's 'Merry Christmas'!"
"Merry Christmas, baby!"
On several armored warships, Chaos operatives unleashed rocket launchers and heavy fire, tearing into Kitsune's helicopters and ships!
Kitsune responded with a barrage of their own.
"Chaos detected!"
"Clear the sea lanes! Priority to landing!"
"Wait—on Antarctica, there's—Boom!"
"It's Serpent's Hand! They have aircraft carriers?!"
"Coastal defenses—anti-aircraft guns!"
"What?!"
The landing instantly turned into hell.
The number of ships at sea, planes in the air—staggering.
Where Serpent's Hand had gotten their fleet was a mystery. Chaos's armada was cobbled together from ships of multiple nations.
Two options: either they'd been acquired… or Computer had intervened.
And Antarctica itself was bristling with defenses: anti-aircraft batteries, tanks, heavy units spread across the ice.
Kitsune couldn't seize the skies. They couldn't dominate the sea. The landing bogged down on all fronts.
Yet Kitsune had the most armaments, the most manpower. Reinforcements continued to pour in. Even in a war of attrition, they could endure.
Then—a fully mechanized colossus dropped onto Antarctica's ice.
Computer, piloting Chaos Unit 01, landed with a thunderous crash.
"Communications will cease here."
Zap!
In an instant, all communications across Antarctica went dead.
This section of the comms network was severed by Computer!
Kitsune and Serpent's Hand were cut off entirely—only Chaos retained communication.
Seizing the opportunity, Chaos's main forces swung wide, flanking across the sea and launching a landing operation in the Ross Sea!
But the coastline was heavily fortified. Chaos's assault was met with ferocious counterfire from the island's defenses.
"What the hell—how did they get tanks and anti-aircraft guns onto Antarctica?!"
And worse—there were so many of them.
A soldier raised his binoculars, scanning the shoreline. He froze, stunned.
"Wait… those aren't even human!"
Through the lenses he saw it clearly: the ones manning Serpent's Hand's hot weapons weren't people at all, but some kind of undead.
Things like ghouls.
On Antarctica, a black-robed figure stood with three books orbiting him, pages wide open.
One was pure silver, inlaid with an iron rule—its title: " Iron War ".
Another wore a cover like a peeled human face—" Cultes des Goules ".
The last bore the head of a goat—" Revelations ".
The three grim tomes circled Cain. He lifted a hand, and from the pages of Iron War a beam of light surged skyward, then crashed down, solidifying into a heavy tank.
The books swayed and spun. Cultes des Goules hovered before him. Cain gestured, and a dark green miasma seeped into the corpses scattered across the ice. Instantly, they rose as ghouls, shambling into motion!
Under his command, the ghouls clambered into the newly spawned tanks, driving them straight toward the seashore.
Just then, another black-robed figure hurried to Cain's side.
"Lord Cain, our communications have been cut off. Computer must be here!"
Cain's eyes gleamed beneath the hood. "It doesn't matter. Spread the battle lines. Do not allow Kitsune or Chaos to land."
Cain—one of the three leaders of Serpent's Hand—had chosen a merciless tactic.
Human head tactics.
Capture the living, replace them with the dead. Grind flesh against flesh until one side was annihilated.
And with Cultes des Goules in his grasp, even death wasn't the end—Cain could raise the fallen to fight again, continuing the cycle of attrition.
As long as Kitsune and Chaos failed to land, their strength would bleed away. One side rising, the other falling—their vitality would be devoured piece by piece.
At that moment, another black-robed messenger rushed up.
"Lord Cain! The Ross coastline has been breached!"
"That fast?"
"Notify Seth. Someone has landed. Find a way to push them back!"
On the Ross Sea front, Arthur alone smashed through the defensive line.
Draped in a green military jacket, arms and legs clad in steel, he faced the incoming barrage head-on. With a single swing of his throwing knives, he pierced the artillery shells mid-flight, detonating them before they could hit!
Boom!
A squad of ghouls with mounted machine guns opened fire.
Arthur's body moved with unnatural sharpness—he twisted, sidestepped, then blurred behind a ghoul, slicing it clean in half!
He didn't stop—already charging at the next one.
A tank rumbled toward him. One stroke of his blade, and the steel beast split apart like paper!
Arthur danced across the battlefield like a roaming dragon—every strike precise, every motion fluid. He wasn't just dodging attacks—he was faster, sharper, amplified.
That was Lightbrain.
The implant was like installing an extra core processor inside his head.
When multiple attacks converged, Lightbrain calculated their trajectories, timing, and the single optimal evasion path—faster than Arthur could think.
And if Arthur couldn't react in time? Lightbrain could seize his nerves directly, forcing the body into the perfect evasive maneuver.
"How does it feel?"
Computer's voice buzzed in his auditory system, directly transmitted by Lightbrain.
"Explosively exhilarating!" Arthur roared back.
"You truly didn't disappoint me, Arthur."
Arthur prepared to push forward—but suddenly, his body jerked backward.
"What the—?" He tried to surge ahead, but Lightbrain overrode him, pulling him into retreat.
Arthur staggered, his motions breaking down into spasms—his muscles fighting themselves.
Then he saw it.
From the sky, a black-robed figure descended, a rain of threads stabbing into the ground.
The figure spun in midair, blade of woven strings cleaving downward.
Arthur's eyes narrowed.
"It's you again… the thread-user!"