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"Cat got your tongue?"
"Well, makes sense. This isn't exactly something you can admit to. At least not out loud."
Shiroyasha shook her head, not particularly bothered by Ryo's silence.
In Little Garden, there were certain things you simply didn't say. Once spoken, they could bring endless trouble.
If Ryo openly admitted here that he was connected to Algol, then if some Three-Digit expert skilled in divination decided to investigate, there was a good chance they'd eventually uncover the truth.
The Demon Star Algol had an absolutely terrible reputation in Little Garden. Her mouth alone had offended who knew how many god-kings. On top of that, she had once challenged the Three Thousand Worlds and even dared to compete with that Buddha before his enlightenment.
Because of that, plenty of people would love to capture Algol and present her to the Buddha as a favor.
If Ryo got tangled up in something like that, he might not necessarily die, but trouble would be guaranteed.
"Working with Algol isn't a problem," Shiroyasha continued. "As long as it doesn't get exposed. With my standing in the buddhist faction, I can still cover for you."
Tilting her head slightly, she added, "With things as they are now, if Algol's by your side, at least your life is safe. In that sense, her escaping the seal might actually be a good thing."
Algol was someone who couldn't appear in the open.
Shiroyasha knew it. Ryo knew it. Even Algol herself knew it.
The reason had already been made clear.
She had declared war on the Three Thousand Worlds. To put it another way, before the Buddha achieved enlightenment, Algol had tried to block his path and compete for the opportunity to reach the Two-Digit level.
And now that very person had become the current leader of the Buddhist Faction.
If Algol ever wanted to truly show herself again, she would probably have to wait until she possessed strength comparable to a Two-Digit.
That was also why, after Ryo revealed the opportunity connected to Two-Digit, Algol had rushed out without hesitation.
Whether she could ever gain real freedom depended on this gamble.
If she didn't push all her chips in now, she might never get another chance.
That was the reality.
Ryo still said nothing, but inwardly he was wondering what the Buddha's real intentions were.
He didn't believe for a second that someone like that couldn't guess Algol was hiding at his side.
And yet, up to now, he hadn't been surrounded by Buddhist powerhouses.
Which meant the Buddhist faction was tacitly allowing it.
Or perhaps some other force had influenced them into accepting Algol's escape.
Maybe Thousand Eyes had played a role in it. Or perhaps the Buddha himself had some deeper plan.
Either way, Algol's escape clearly benefited Ryo.
She was essentially a trump card in his hand. And one that had delivered itself voluntarily.
With that card in play, ordinary god-kings wouldn't dare touch him.
In a sense, this bought him the most valuable thing he needed.
Time.
At the very least, ten years.
In just half a year, Ryo had already reached the Four-Digit level. Ten years from now, even he couldn't predict where he might stand.
Maybe by then he wouldn't even fear Two-Digit beings anymore.
Well, even Ryo felt that reaching Two-Digit in a little over a decade sounded ridiculous. But the potential of the Cosmo system gave him hope.
That Pegasus Saint had gone from ordinary human to someone capable of killing Ninth-Sense main gods in just a few years.
Sure, Pegasus had his own cheats. But Ryo had his too.
Of course, these were the kinds of thoughts he kept to himself. If he actually said them out loud, the gods of Little Garden would laugh themselves sick.
Those beings had struggled for tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years without crossing that final threshold. And here was a human thinking he could do it in just over a decade.
It sounded like pure delusion.
But Ryo preferred doing things first and talking later. Bragging ahead of time and then showing off afterward wasn't his style. He'd rather grow quietly, and only reveal himself once he had truly become a giant.
Just like what happened with Greece.
Before this, everyone thought Ryo was just some new subordinate Athena had taken in.
But now? After confronting Zeus head-on, forcing him to fight seriously, and even making him suffer heavy losses without being able to retaliate, who would still think Ryo was a weakling clinging to someone else?
He was already a powerhouse in his own right.
At least in the lower layers of Little Garden, Ryo now stood at the very peak of combat strength.
No matter how powerful Zeus was, no matter how deep his foundation, down here his strength could at best match Ryo's.
If Zeus hadn't been repeatedly poisoned by Ryo and humiliated to the extreme, he wouldn't have gone so far as to expose his own hidden cards.
To put it plainly, in that situation, if Zeus hadn't fought with everything he had, Ryo would have dared to kill him. And many of the watching gods would have happily watched Zeus die.
Even if his soul survived and only his body was destroyed, it would still matter.
Because the death of his body would mean Zeus had effectively withdrawn early from the race for the Two-Digit level.
After all, no Two-Digit being had ever ascended in the form of a mere soul.
Even the Buddha, who emphasized transcendence of the soul above all else, still possessed a divine golden body.
So at that moment, Zeus had truly been pushed to the brink by Ryo.
Ryo stopped at a small shop by the street and bought two bottles of freshly squeezed juice.
He took a sip and handed one to Shiroyasha.
"To be honest," he said casually, "I actually like seeing Zeus like this. Desperate to kill me, but completely unable to do anything about it."
To kill Ryo, Zeus would have to ascend to the Three-Digit level.
But once he reached Three-Digit, he would be forced to go to the upper layers, leaving the lower layers of Little Garden, where acquiring Gifts and Authorities were far easier.
And if he didn't ascend, he couldn't kill Ryo. He might even get killed instead because of his weaker body.
A perfect dilemma.
Advance, and you lose your advantage. Retreat, and you're still stuck. The more you think about it, the more infuriating it becomes.
Honestly, Ryo almost felt sorry for Zeus.
"In all these years," Shiroyasha said with a grin, "aside from those few ancient fossils, you're the first person to make Zeus suffer such a huge loss."
Zeus's reputation had never been great to begin with, so plenty of gods enjoyed seeing him embarrassed.
And even without thinking too hard, Shiroyasha knew the news of Ryo defeating Zeus must already be spreading like wildfire across Little Garden.
Sooner or later, it would reach this lower-layer gate too.
And when that happened, Ryo would truly become famous.
The first human to defeat a god-king.
The first human to reach the Four-Digit level as a rule-breaker powerhouse.
The man who beat Zeus in a life-and-death battle.
And if you added the fact that he had reached Four-Digit in only a year, with combat strength beyond that level… something only Shiroyasha knew…
Then Ryo had already created several miracles.
And the community he led was destined to soar.
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