Chapter 421: Rachel's Ruthless Calculus
Rachel sealed the office long ago, but it's essential to understand that she only sealed the office in her charge of reality. There are countless offices throughout the various charges of reality all over the creation.
Who created the office? The ultimate answer is that no one knows. Like with all Rank 14 entities, its origin is a well-kept secret that even Rachel failed to unravel. Although she doesn’t know who created the office, she does know its aim. Simply put, the office exists solely to attack Rachel and ruin her plans.
Fortunately for her, it hasn’t been very successful. In most worlds, the office ultimately loses to Rachel's incarnations and gets sealed. Being sealed is the second-worst fate that can happen to a Rank 14. The worst fate is the unraveling of their origin paradox, which results in their death. Only quasi-Rank 15 entities can come back after their origin paradox is exposed.
Rachel would have loved to destroy the office altogether, but unfortunately, origin paradoxes are incredibly well-guarded. She can’t steal such sensitive information from the knowledge vaults of the Creation. Exposing the origin paradox of a Rank 14 would wipe out all of them. For instance, if one of Rachel's Rank 14 incarnations had their origin paradox exposed—anywhere in the Creation, the Gray Realm, past, future, or present—it would mean the end for Rachel. All her incarnations, hidden influences, and even those close to her, like Luther, would perish. For Rank 14s, an exposed origin paradox is their Achilles’ heel; once revealed, survival is impossible. Fortunately for Rachel, her origin paradox is not within the Creation but in the infinite domain of the Gray Realm. With her indirect control over the Gray Realm, not even the Creation can expose or delete her origin paradox. Of course, being unable to delete it doesn’t mean the Creation is powerless against her. Luckily, the Creation has no will, so she doesn't need to worry too much.
Rachel doesn’t fear the office. As stated earlier, not even the Creation can completely kill her. As long as she maintains indirect control over the Gray Realm, not even the Creation can end her, let alone the office. But she does fear disruptions. Her experiment with the Infinite Body is delicate. Defective or corrupted data could delay her and lead her to incorrect conclusions, steering her away from the perfection she seeks.
To be cautious, she excluded all data from Lana's world or any other world with even the slightest trace of the office’s influence. The Infinite Bodies originating from those places might provide faulty data, which she absolutely wanted to avoid.
After excluding those data sets, she recalculated, planning to create a revised Infinite Body version 2. Now aware that the office, and possibly other Rank 14s, were trying to interfere with her, she placed massive formations around the layers of realities she controls, trying at least to detect any infiltration attempts.
Despite her indirect control over the Gray Realm, Rachel isn’t strong enough to seal all Rank 14s and remove every possible influence. After all, her control is indirect. She isn’t a quasi-Rank 15 yet. She cannot even create formations to repel Rank 14's attacks flawlessly. Battles between Rank 14s end with one side sealing the other and would require a Rank 14 Rachel incarnation’s direct presence; she cannot just set up formations that repeal Rank 14 enemies.
Rachel has already checked: the offices she previously sealed remain sealed. Therefore, the one attacking now is likely a new one from a realm where she has no control.
...
"Damn!" Rachel sighed, shaking her head. After excluding the potentially tampered data, she fed the remaining information to many Rank 13 computing worlds. The results were a bit beyond her expectations.
"The office's influence was the main reason our Infinite Body v2 failed! That sneaky bastard!" she muttered, her cold gaze fixed on a particular charge of reality. Of course, as a pill container, she has no eyes.
The office’s manipulation was incredibly subtle. She only discovered it because she knew exactly where to look. Otherwise, she might have missed it altogether. After investigating further, she understood the chain of events.
The office had secretly infiltrated her lower-grade incarnations, changing them ever so slightly. Her main incarnations were protected by system skills and couldn't be influenced, but her lesser incarnations lacked that protection. By influencing the lower incarnations, the office subtly altered the direction of the Infinite Body experiment. In such a precise endeavor, even slight deviations delayed her progress for who knows how many years.
Even the office, a Rank 14 entity, couldn’t fully take over her lower incarnations. However, changing them incrementally caused their personalities to deviate from the main body. It took a long time to uncover, but fortunately, she found them quickly.
As for why Luther didn’t discover it sooner, it was simply because the office was highly skilled at what it did. Without looking for it specifically, even Luther, a Rank 14 himself, wouldn’t have detected it.
Rachel knew she couldn't extend the Gray Realm's protection to all her incarnations. The energy required was too vast. Even though she possessed infinite energy, the amount she could access at any one time wasn’t limitless. Skills that protect against Rank 14s are expensive, and the protection she provided to her higher-level incarnations already consumed a significant amount of energy; only by reaching quasi-rank 15 can she truly access absolutely unlimited energy.
"Let's just scrap them all!" she decided. Her incarnations had helped her over the years, but now, they were vulnerable to the office and possibly other Rank 14s. It is better to discard them than risk further interference.
Rachel’s attitude toward herself and her incarnations was practical. She didn’t view them as separate beings but as extensions of herself. Killing them was no more significant than cutting her hair. Long hair could be a liability in war, and a rational warrior would cut it off. Rachel knew her incarnations wouldn’t mind dying if it helped the main body achieve her goal.
Technically speaking, only her Rank 14 incarnations could truly be considered her. The Rank 13 and below incarnations were simple imitations. She could create and destroy them at will. While they didn’t share her origin paradox, they still depended on her, and once her origin paradox was exposed, they would perish as well.
With this in mind, Rachel snapped her slender fingers. Of course, she had no physical fingers—she did it in her brain. Then again, she didn’t have a brain, either.
With that snap, countless incarnations across all charges of reality were destroyed. All of her Rank 13 and below incarnations exploded and were removed entirely. All Rank 14 Rachel incarnations approved this move. At this point, distractions were no longer acceptable. The lower incarnations had proven susceptible to manipulation and infiltration.
Afterward, Rachel sent out countless Rank 13 beings equipped with detection devices. Now, even the faintest trace of another Rank 14’s aura would be detected immediately. All her subordinates would undergo regular testing, and any world showing signs of tampering would be wiped out, excluding all data from it.
She does plan to improve her lower-level incarnation creation technique to see if she can make them immune to influence by other rank 14s. If she succeeds, she will again produce lower-grade incarnations and disperse them throughout the creation. Of course, at the moment, she only cares about the infinite body, so the incarnation technique has to wait.
...
Luther looked at the pink-glowing world in front of her. A few figures quickly emerged—Zagronan, Lana, and Savior—all bowing.
"Listen to the order!" Luther shouted. "Rachel has ordered the extermination of all those influenced by the office, including you!"
The three stood silently. They knew resistance was futile in front of a Rank 14. With her head bowed, Lana asked, "Do we have any chance of survival?"
Luther shrugged. "I have no idea what the future holds!"
Even though Rachel had now ordered their deaths, she could easily bring them back to life if she wished. Very few things were beyond the power of Rank 14 Rachel. Death wasn’t necessarily permanent. Although Luther doubted Rachel would bother reviving these demons, in the infinitely long future, nothing was impossible.
Lana, Savior, and even the usually aggressive Zagronan simply stood there, waiting for their deaths. Their Rachel incarnations had already exploded, and they had no one to appeal to.
Without pity, Luther snapped his fingers. All three, along with the pink world behind them, disappeared.
Extending his palm, Luther collected the inner souls of all who had perished. Typically, these souls would return to the Creation, but Luther was strong enough to hold them temporarily. He still couldn’t keep them forever, though.
He copied and recreated their inner souls in the Gray Realm's infinite domain. They could be resurrected there, but they would no longer belong to the Creation. Then, he released the original souls from his palm, allowing them to flow back to the Creation.
The copies in the Gray Realm were identical but not the same. Even if Rachel revived them in the future, they would be perfect replicas, not the originals. The actual inner souls had returned to the Creation and were lost forever.