Shrouded Seascape

Charles found himself in what appeared to be a workshop inside a factory.

A massive amount of seaweed was being rapidly blended into a paste by a machine that looked like an amalgamation of flesh and machinery. The paste was then transported to the next room via a conveyor belt.

What do they need so much seaweed for? Am I inside one of the Haikor's food factories? A flicker of doubt crossed Charles' mind.

Still hanging upside down, Charles noticed the pain in his stomach slowly subsiding. He pondered briefly over his next move before deciding to move to the next room.

The next room was full of strange and complex-looking machines. The machines spewed steam as they mixed the seaweed paste with some kind of white liquid.

Charles walked down the workshop and watched as the seaweed passed through one processing stage after another to produce green paperboard sheets the size of a table.

Charles watched as bone dies struck patterns of waves and ships on the surface of the green paperboard, and his pupils constricted to needlepoints upon recognizing the patterns.

The green paperboard sheets were Echo bills!

The Echo bills that were circulating throughout the entire Subterranean Sea were being made here!

Before Charles could recover from the shock, the hairs on the back of his head stood on end. Someone's gaze had landed on him.

Oh no, they've found me! Charles reacted quickly, and his figure phased out of the mint. After rapidly phasing through several more walls, he suddenly found himself engulfed in cold seawater.

Charles had no time to rejoice in his narrow escape. He swung his arms frantically to swim to the surface as soon as possible. However, Charles' expression became extremely ugly as soon as he saw what was above him.

There was another grand inverted city above him. It also didn't seem like he could swim his way to the surface.

However, Charles didn't have the luxury to ponder over his situation. The gaze ahd returned, and it stuck to him as if it were his shadow. Whatever was staring at him, they could see through his invisibility.

In other words, Charles had to keep moving, or he would get captured once again.

Charles' figure flashed a few times as he disappeared into an inverted square building.

"Cough, cough..." Charles coughed violently as he leaned against a black stone tablet. The fresh blood gushing out of his mouth reminded him that his stomach would be in danger if he continued using the teleportation relic.

Fortunately, it seemed that Lady Luck was on Charles' side. The building seemed desolate, as if it had been a long time since someone had stepped in here.

The gaze that stuck to him like glue had disappeared as well as if it were refusing to come in here.

Charles leaned completely on the stone tablet behind him while gasping for breath. After a short rest, Charles rubbed his hand gently on the stone tablet behind him and noticed something amiss.

Gasping for air, he turned around and saw something engraved on the glossy black stone tablet.

e^iπ+1=0...e^ix=cosx+is...

"What... what is this?" The text engraved on the stone tablet seemed to be a spell that froze Charles in place.

"A magical incantation? Are these ancient words from the language of the gods?" Charles muttered his guesses as he ran his hand across the stone tablet. For some reason, the mysterious text made him feel a sense of déjà vu.

Just then, Charles abruptly looked up and saw a spider the size of a small house crawling down a pitch-black spider web.

Spiders were supposed to have bulging silk sacs on their back, but this spider had a mountain of trembling brains in a variety of colors and shapes, and they were all wrapped in spider silk.

It wasn't Charles' first time seeing the spider before him. He had fought one together with T from the Foundation, and they barely managed to kill it after they went all out and sustained severe injuries that put them on the verge of death.

Even worse, the spider at the time was severely injured, but the giant spider before Charles was intact, without any injuries. The sight inundated Charles' heart with despair.

"Wrong. This is mathematics." A middle-aged woman's voice echoed from the giant spider's mouth.

"What?" Charles asked unknowingly. The sight before him was so surreal that he felt like he was in a dream.

The giant spider descended before Charles and stared at the engraving on the stone tablet with its dozens of scarlet eyes. "I said this is mathematics, the four fundamental forces of the universe.

"Have you heard of them? They govern not just atoms but the entire universe, and I want to gain an understanding of them.

"What do you think? Is the power of the gods really impossible to understand? I don't think so. Even if they are unobservable and impossible to detect, it doesn't mean that they can't be understood."

"The laws of the universe are interconnected. I believe that we will have a fundamental understanding of the gods the moment we gain an understanding of the four fundamental forces of the universe."

The giant spider turned its dozens of scarlet eyes at Charles, and as its horrifying head moved closer to him, he saw dozens of his own reflections in the giant spider's scarlet eyeballs.

"I believe that humans should wield their own power rather than borrow the gods' unknown power. Mathematics will always be our weapon. It will not go out of control, nor will it betray us. It will always be on our side."

"'We'? Are you talking about yourself along with humanity?" Charles stared at the giant spider. The giant spider's words were so absurd that Charles felt like laughing. He suppressed the urge to laugh and asked, "Who are you?"

"I already told you back then, Charles. I'm T6. I'm a member of the Foundation's GK Council, and I mostly do theoretical research."

The giant spider's words enlightened Charles at once, and the puzzle pieces in his head finally fell into place.

From "Feuerbach's" appearance to Paiper's arrival to reinforce them at the opportune moment in the center of the darkness…

From the tacit understanding between the gods of the Haikor Tribe and the Foundation against the triakis octahedron to the human-like mannerisms and speech patterns of Paiper and Pogro…

Moreover, Charles had just stumbled upon a banknote printing facility producing Echo bills.

The puzzle pieces fell into place, and Charles realized something just then. The Foundation had never been hidden; it had been right under everyone's nose all along!

"What is Paiper's code name in the GK Council?" Charles asked.

"E4."

"What about Pogro, who has been monitoring our movements at the Colossal Hole Fortress?"

"O5."

"What about Pede, who seems to be even stronger than a Divinity?"

"V3."

They had bizarre appearances that couldn't be further from what a human being was supposed to look like, yet they were all members of the GK Council!

The gods of the Haikor Tribe were members of the Foundation!

Charles looked down at the ground and smiled. "Impressive. You guys surely are tough. To think that you guys had ended up surviving that disaster a thousand years ago."

T6's reply was a bit late, and she spoke in a heavy voice, saying, "No, you're wrong. Every single Foundation member at the time was killed except for the seven members who had fused to form the Light God.

"On that day, the sleeping 003 opened His eyes, and no one could withstand it. The Foundation was annihilated at the time."

T6 seemed to have seen through Charles' thoughts, so she added, "We're not the original members of the Foundation. In fact, we're the Foundation's experimental subjects."

T6's voice sounded a bit self-deprecating as she continued, "Isn't it hilarious? Back then, we were just their tools… their lab rats for their experiments, but we somehow ended up becoming them.

"But Charles, you have to understand that someone has to step up amidst the predicament. Humans are mere ants before them, but we must always strive for survival against them.

"The Foundation was never a group of people. It was always a belief—the belief that one must save one's own species at the cost of everything else.

"And inheritors of that belief is the Foundation…"