"We were too greedy" An Ping curtly sighed.
From the very beginning, everything related to Negary's access authority had been a trap. Before Negary helped them build the Path of Error, they had no other choice, but after the Path of Error had been constructed, they had a chance at being greedy.
If Negary chose to access the Source Pool and utilize the Source Energy within, then as Negary used his [Otherworld Invasion] Authority to invade another world, the Source Energy would naturally flow throughout his body.
At that time, the hidden cards in both the Source Pool and the [Otherworld Invasion] Authority would activate at the same time, thus 'swaying' Negary to their side. The beliefs and convictions of human elites as well as humanity as a whole for the past few thousand years of struggle and war would be forcefully injected into Negary, thus brainwashing him.
From the perspective of this world, it would be thoroughly white-washing Negary into a prideful anti-hero character, the mere thought of it felt emotional.
That was the reason why An Ping's group refrained themselves from taking away Negary's [Otherworld Invasion] Authority.
At the same time, they weren't completely passive during this period of waiting, as they had found a way to control the Negary personality that had infected Fang Ze, which they could easily use to take over control of the Path of Error whenever necessary.
It was at this point that An Ping's side got greedy.
They hoped that they would be able to brainwash Negary and take control of him, turning him into a henchman of this world, then send him off to other worlds to collect power.
After all, this world had gotten much too weak, having been forced to reset its own timeline three times by the New Deity and Progenitor Dragon; after this war, the amount of total supernatural factors in this world would greatly decrease as time passed.
At this point, if they had the help of an invader to invade other worlds and return with those worlds' resources, through absorbing another world's characteristics, this world could quickly recover its strength, or perhaps even grow.
Plunder had and always would be the quickest way to amass wealth.
However, invading other worlds wasn't quite that simple. The invading being would either need to be extremely powerful like the New Deity and Progenitor Dragon; have unique methods that would allow them to infiltrate another world; or have unique individuals working for it.
The Disaster world naturally had no unique technology for invasions, even if it wanted to create powerhouses for the sake of invasion, it was afraid of ungrateful fellows like the New Deity and Progenitor Dragon. On the other hand, with the Disaster world's current situation, it wouldn't be able to produce such a powerhouse anyways.
It just so happened that Negary's 'error' property was essentially the greatest virtue that an otherworldly invader could have. If the Flame world didn't have its huge flaw, it might not have been able to create an entity like Negary.
Without these conditions, even if they spent great effort to send people to other worlds, they would only be trying to fish with a broken tree branch.
The invader would reincarnate in another world, get discovered by it, then begin a life anew. The characteristics of their original world would eventually be absorbed away until they truly believed that they originally came from the invaded world, making the entire invasion a big joke.
The so-called [Otherworld Invasion] Authority was nothing but an experimental Authority created from data they had collected from the New Deity and Progenitor's invasions; it might be usable for defensive purposes, but was absolutely useless for an actual invasion.
There would only be a slim chance at success by combining it with Negary's 'error' property.
It was for this reason that they had tried to take control of Negary over and over again, giving up the Source Pool access authority as promised, while not retaking the [Otherworld Invasion] Authority with the safety measures they had prepared.
They couldn't imagine that Negary would rip away the façade between them so readily, and be so indifferent about the Source Pool authority. The reason why they had 'accidentally' released Samira to help Shennai was to force Negary to use his Source Pool authority and quickly flee through the [Otherworld Invasion] Authority.
The fact that Negary immediately withdrew the power of the Path of Error was beyond An Ping's expectations, forcing him to remedy the situation by sending an ultimatum to Negary with a clone, once again urging him to use the Source Pool.
Unfortunately, Negary wasn't deceived, and An Ping's calculations were completely off. They had already lost the initiative and had no choice but to once again set up the Path of Error through the Negary personality from Fang Ze.
But since this Negary had fallen under control, he was no longer Negary, and since he didn't have Negary's 'error' property, he couldn't fully exert the Path of Error's power.
On the other hand, the New Deity and Progenitor Dragon weren't fools, during the short time that the Path of Error lost its effectiveness, they had already infiltrated this world with their power. Where the Path of Error used to be able to completely suppress their advance, it could only now marginally stall them.
"Are you done with your preparations? Chang Xia" An Ping didn't wallow in self-blame, as the more benefits one wished to obtain, the higher price one must be prepared to pay in the case of failure.
If they had succeeded with their plan against Negary, not only would they obtain a world invader for themselves, they would also get Negary's full cooperation through this hardship.
If they failed, the only consequence was a weakened Path of Error, they still had other means to remedy this.
It was only after he weighed the cons against the pros that An Ping decided to put the plan against Negary into motion; failure only meant that the execution was flawed, not that this line of thinking was incorrect.
"You need to understand clearly, by sacrificing the two of us, we will be able to save this world. Otherwise, with how things are going, we would still fail in the end" An Ping encouraged him.
Chang Xia watched the man sitting in front of him while rubbing his forehead, trying to relieve his headache.
The man sitting across Chang Xia was the chairman of the D.E.R division, his superior, as well as the leader of the government's special ops department. Chang Xia had cursed him in his mind too many times to count, as most of the bullshit that Chang Xia has had to deal with over the years was by his orders.
For example, Wang Heng Yang's attack on Fang Ze to urge him to grow, as well as many other unnamed operations.
Chang Xia had never actually seen his face, as they had always spoken through phone or video call; even in video calls, the only thing he would ever see was a backdrop with a floating pair of eyes reflecting through the darkness.
It was only now, when he had faced his superior, that he understood.
The man sitting across from him looked almost the same as him, the only difference was their age, as the man looked to be either 10 or 20 years older than the current Chang Xia.
The more he looked at the man, the more memories would surface in his mind through the headache. In a flash, he saw the life of his other self, even somewhat understanding the thoughts of that man through a faint soul connection.
The man sitting across from him was 'him' from the previous cycle, who had appeared in this cycle for some unknown reason.
His chronic headache was the result of none other than the existence of his other self, who had only just appeared since after the Yue Bu earthquake. In other words, it was at that time that 'he' arrived from the previous cycle.
