Chapter 4594: An Answer

Well, the only ones who came out were actually Rean and Lukay. Roan and the others remained inside the airplane since there was no reason for everyone to expose themselves. After all, it still wasn’t guaranteed that Aurundi had nothing to do with what had happened.

The fact that his Ring Communicator signal had suddenly disappeared was simply too suspicious, especially considering that it had happened immediately before an unknown airplane appeared in their vicinity.

Aurundi approached the two and immediately asked, "So you’re okay. Good. What happened here? Someone or something seems to have been pulverized by a Lightning Element attack. I sensed it from quite far away as I came over, and that was definitely not Lukay’s Lightning."

Rean nodded. "Senior Aurundi is correct. That Lightning Attack came from an airplane carrying an expert from the Thousand-Script Race."

Aurundi was taken aback. "The Thousand-Script Race? The Natak Region followed us all the way here? How?"

Lukay answered from beside Rean, "We don’t know. The only reason we noticed something was wrong was because your RC signal suddenly disappeared. Aurundi, can you explain what happened to it?"

"That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out," Aurundi replied. "The signal from your airplane suddenly disappeared from my RC interface. I tried calling you several times, but there was no response. That’s why I came over to check on you. What happened to your airplane’s beacon?"

Rean narrowed his eyes slightly. "I turned it off when your signal disappeared. We thought something was wrong, so we decided to test things out. As it turned out, we were right. It didn’t take long for experts from the Natak Region to appear. But then..."

Rean proceeded to explain everything that had happened, including how Roan had taken advantage of the enemy’s overconfidence to kill the Thousand-Script Race expert, only for someone else to destroy the corpse and erase all evidence. He only omitted the fact that Roan escaped into the Great Void, instead saying that the enemy immediately left after destroying its companion’s body.

Aurundi’s expression became increasingly serious as he listened. "This... How did they make your signal disappear in the first place?"

Rean pondered for a moment. Nothing about Aurundi’s reaction felt like a lie, but there was still no reason to take anything for granted. "Senior Aurundi, would you mind letting me examine your RC?"

Aurundi didn’t object. His Ring Communicator detached from his core and floated toward Rean. That made Rean slightly more at ease. If Aurundi had truly intended to hide something, willingly handing over his RC would have been a strange way to proceed.

Rean immediately began examining the runes and array circuitry inside it. Everything was extremely tiny and intricate, with countless microrunes operating together in a structure that would have been difficult for an ordinary Arrays Master to inspect. Fortunately, with Sister Orb’s assistance, studying the structure was much easier.

After a long while, Rean finally found the problem. "Oh, wow... That’s new."

Lukay and Aurundi immediately looked at him. "What? What is it?"

"You see, the RC’s signal works by converting Celestial Energy from the surroundings into the different types of energy it needs to operate. Electricity, sense-link runes, and so on," Rean explained. "The microrunes responsible for converting the energy required to respond to incoming signals have been completely fried."

He continued, "The communication between an RC and my airplane’s beacon, or between an RC and a Region’s Network, works both ways. You receive a signal, and your RC sends a response confirming that it received the communication. The same thing happens in the opposite direction."

"Your RC is still functioning perfectly in every other aspect. As far as it’s concerned, it simply lost the signal from the network it was previously connected to. It can’t tell itself that the runes responsible for the communication response have been destroyed. And, to begin with, making something like this happen is easier said than done."

"Fried?" Aurundi was surprised. "But... I haven’t been affected by anything. I could understand if this happened during a battle where I failed to protect the Ring Communicator, but that definitely wasn’t the case."

Rean shook his head. "Ring Communicators were designed around cultivators’ own lives as their basis. Even if you were fighting with everything you had, the chances of you actually damaging your RC are extremely low. They contain numerous contingency runes and array inscriptions that take over whenever something stops functioning."

"Yet every single rune responsible for the energy conversion specifically used by the RC’s communication signal has been destroyed. Your RC can’t even tell that it’s broken. The sense link, which allows you to use your Celestial Sense to see the RC interface and interact with it in your mind, is working without any problems. It simply... can’t contact anyone. Everything else is fine."

Rean’s expression became more serious. "Unless someone knew exactly what they were targeting, there is no way they could damage the RC so precisely. A very high level of knowledge about runes would be necessary."

He looked directly at Aurundi. "And yes, it wasn’t something done directly to you that you could have noticed. I’m pretty sure your RC received the attack through the network itself. Simply put, the enemy reached the range where it could communicate with your RC, and the moment the connection was established, your RC was attacked and fried. Well, it would be better to say the enemy knew how to make your RC attack itself, that is."

"I mean, it had to be done that way. If the RC itself hadn’t been disabled, you would have noticed a new signal appearing from a different location than ours. It would have been the signal of an RC that wasn’t even supposed to be here."

Aurundi took his RC back, although it was now effectively useless. His mood darkened as he looked at the damaged device. The more Rean explained, the more unsettling the situation became. This wasn’t simply someone overpowering an RC or destroying it through brute force. Someone had specifically targeted a tiny portion of its internal system without disturbing anything else.

"Just to be sure, you don’t think I’m involved in any of this, right?" Aurundi asked. "I’m not an idiot. You were obviously suspicious when I arrived."

"You’re not," Rean confirmed. "It might sound rude, but please don’t take it personally. Senior Aurundi, I don’t think you have what it takes to attempt something like this. At the very least, not without being a very experienced Arrays Master yourself. And, according to what Senior Tobao told us, you’ve never worked with arrays before."

"Don’t worry. I’m perfectly aware that I have almost no knowledge about arrays. I’ve never had the patience to study them before." Aurundi put the damaged RC away before taking another one from his Spatial Ring. "Oh, here we go. This one can see your RCs now."

As durable as RCs were designed to be, there was always a chance one could be damaged during a battle. Because of that, carrying several of them was practically standard for any cultivator who wanted to be properly prepared.

Aurundi used the new RC to connect to his airplane, which soon flew closer to him. "Still, even if you used deception and managed to kill a Law God, I don’t think it’s safe for us to remain here. We should return to the Besgol Region immediately. And don’t even think about asking me to stay far behind this time. I’m staying glued to your backs the entire way."

Rean had already expected that. It would be weird if Aurundi stayed far after what happened. "We understand. Follow us closely, Senior. I won’t reactivate my airplane’s beacon, since it was most likely used to find our exact location. We’ll have to stay within the range of the RCs themselves, which is only a few dozen kilometers."

"Very well," Aurundi accepted, quickly flying back into his airplane.

Rean and Lukay also returned to their own airplane and explained everything to the others. The atmosphere inside was noticeably more serious now.

Roan, however, didn’t seem entirely convinced. Rean noticed immediately. "What’s wrong? Do you think Aurundi is connected to what happened?"

Roan shook his head. "No, he’s clean. I’m more interested in how we were found after going so deep into the Godly Creatures’ Territories. Even if your beacon has an enormous range, it’s still nothing compared to the distance we’ve traveled from Besgol."

Rean nodded. "I think I have an answer for that."

He then pointed at Lunelle and Luxa. "They’re the culprits!"