Chapter 1901 - 1900: Ritual Collapse

"You insta-killed Ai Luoti?" Sulan, not far away, saw this and his eyes widened. "That idiot, how the hell did she get this weak? Fuck, she couldn’t even cast Divine Arts?"

But He Ao didn’t answer Sulan. Instead, he turned his gaze toward Anke at the side.

[Life Holy Grace]

[Eternal Source, Only You Show Mercy]

[Available Time: 01:28:37]

[Spend 2 Exchange Stars to redeem 1.5 hours of Skill ’Life Holy Grace’ usage time? (Exchange Stars currently available: 50)]

The Life Power converted by Life Holy Grace was continuously pouring into Anke’s body.

Of course, just ’Life Holy Grace’ alone couldn’t reverse Anke’s body that had already begun Undead-ification. The core part was hidden in the power transmitted along with ’Life Holy Grace’—a Grace directly from the Life Goddess.

He Ao withdrew his gaze and looked at Ai Luoti’s body in front of him, which was rapidly decaying and dissipating.

Ai Luoti had chosen the Domain she was best at, yet in truth, the weakest, to fight He Ao.

That was the Soul Domain.

She tried to use her ability to construct an Illusion Realm for He Ao, merge He Ao into it, and eventually "eat" He Ao, making him part of her.

However, she didn’t know that He Ao’s Soul was far stronger than his body. Two Angel Tier Extraordinary Powers, plus the Divine Sense formed after Unity, were all hidden within He Ao’s Soul.

He Ao could even block her perception, gradually taking over her Illusion Realm, and at the edge of the Illusion Realm, sketch the Array to communicate with the Life Goddess, completing the prerequisites for the Sacrifice ritual.

At the same time, he was constantly invading Ai Luoti’s Soul, completing the Seal and weakening of her power.

From the outside, it looked like he one-shot Ai Luoti with a single sword strike, but in fact, when Ai Luoti attempted a Soul attack on him, he had already finished a large number of operations.

Of course, these Soul-level operations, in the outside world, were all done in the span of an instant.

Ai Luoti herself had actually realized something was wrong. In the mid-stage she could have cut off the Illusion Realm; then most of He Ao’s operations would have been interrupted.

But she chose to wait until the Illusion Realm completely ended. Perhaps she was waiting for her ability to succeed; after all, as long as He Ao put on that mask, he would be completely eaten by her.

Or perhaps, she was waiting for something else.

Either way, it was all over now.

Through the ritual with the Life Goddess, He Ao had already sacrificed Ai Luoti’s husk to the Life Goddess.

And as "Grace", the Goddess bestowed a portion of Her power upon He Ao. This was only part of the agreement between He Ao and the Goddess, but even this portion was enough for He Ao to use this Divine Being’s power to reverse Anke’s Undead state.

Within He Ao’s Mysticism knowledge, this kind of method did not exist.

Yet the Life Goddess’s power could indeed accomplish this. He Ao could already see the gray-white portions of Anke’s body turning back to the color of flesh and blood.

The power of a Divine Being, in some sense, might simply mean a Miracle.

Of course, He Ao could not directly expose the Life Goddess’s power. That would let Sulan sense something off and trigger unnecessary variables.

He borrowed the special nature of this ability, Life Holy Grace, using it as a medium to transmit the Goddess’s power to Anke.

In truth, right when he had just risen from opening the Coffin of Time, he had first redeemed Life Holy Grace, attempting to replenish his own Life Force while trying to save Anke.

But discovering that Life Holy Grace had no effect on Anke’s Undead-ification was what led to his later attempt to contact the Life Goddess.

In a very short span of time, Ai Luoti’s body rapidly rotted away in He Ao’s field of view.

A butterfly-shaped gemstone, flickering with violet radiance, fell out of her body. He Ao reached out and caught the gemstone.

A faint attraction was emanating from the gemstone.

This was Ai Luoti’s Talent Sequences. The Life Goddess had not taken this Talent Sequences.

Judging from the Life Goddess’s usual conservative style, this thing very likely carried trouble that even She didn’t want to get entangled with.

But He Ao didn’t care about that. He squeezed the butterfly gemstone in his hand and stuffed it into a pocket formed from black radiance.

And in this short time, the gray-white color on Anke’s body had completely vanished; his somewhat stiff cheeks had also regained blood.

The kid had a bit of luck on him. By rights, when he first entered this area and saw Sulan’s Mythical Form, he should have gone insane on the spot from the pollution.

But Ai Luoti needed to use him to drag He Ao into this space. If he went insane, the ritual would be affected. So she acted and protected his Soul.

Then, when Ai Luoti gave up on him, He Ao completely broke out from the Seal, replacing Ai Luoti and shielding his Soul.

At this moment, under He Ao’s gaze, Anke also turned his eyes, looking toward He Ao.

The next instant, an invisible void formed right behind Anke.

Before he could react, his entire person was sucked toward that void.

"Don’t even think about it!" Sulan in the distance saw all this as well. He directly raised his hand, splendid scarlet radiance surging across the ground and rolling up a raging Wave of light.

Those Waves overlapped, surging toward He Ao like a tsunami.

Vaguely, dense flames spread within them. Those flames seemed to have no heat at all, rising and falling like the tide.

Yet from the level of his Soul, He Ao could sense a faint, suffocating, terrifying scorching aura.

But faced with these surging scarlet radiances, He Ao didn’t turn his head to look at Sulan. He simply continued to raise his hand, fully opening the passage behind Anke.

On the other side of the passage, a dim city faintly floated into view.

The raging suction force directly seized Anke’s body, dragging him toward the open passage before he could react.

And at that moment, the torrent of scarlet radiance swept toward He Ao.

Just then, a twisted red K character symbol flickered across the back of He Ao’s hand.

A certain invisible connection crossed spacetime, linking He Ao to that slumbering Divine Being.

Boom—

Up in the sky, the huge armored giant that had just raised a helmeted head trembled violently, its power stirred.

Fierce power suddenly detonated along the ritual that had been established. The surging scarlet radiance, like a Sword Light tearing heaven and earth, in an instant ignited all the clouds between heaven and earth.

Roaring flames lit up the entire space like light. Countless twisted fissures spread through this narrow Interstitial Space.

"What did you do?" Sulan raised his head, glanced at the inverted armor in the sky, and clenched his fist sharply.

The radiance surging on the ground instantly spread to all directions, trying to patch those dense cracks.

And in that instant, the massive suction from the passage completely drew Anke inside, across the shaking spacetime, and hurled him out in front of those high-rise buildings.

The radiance rolling across the ground tried to sweep forward, rush into the passage, and grab Anke, but it was already too late. Before the radiance could enter, the passage snapped shut, and everything came to an abrupt halt.

In the same moment, the descending, inverted armor in the sky rapidly floated up. The cloud layer, burning with flames, rolled over it, covering the armor.

"Your ritual has gotten a bit fragile." He Ao glanced at Sulan and said calmly.

As he spoke, his body rapidly turned illusory and faded.

Sulan’s ritual itself used Ai Luoti’s Magic, and through the Mysticism link of Anke and He Ao, absorbed He Ao into this space.

Then, through some special structure, using the link between He Ao and the War God, it pulled the War God’s Tomb toward this space.

Now, with Ai Luoti dead and Anke returned to Vissen, all the prerequisites of the ritual had disappeared, and He Ao’s body naturally began to leave this space; the Advent of the War God’s Tomb was naturally interrupted as well.

"Ai Luoti, you useless trash!!!" Sulan watched He Ao’s body fade and roared in fury.

But he did not try to attack He Ao; instead, he raised his head, the light on the ground surged up, trying to grab hold of that massive armor in the sky that was about to vanish.

He Ao only watched all this calmly, waiting for the surrounding scene to fade, waiting for the densely packed city buildings to appear in his field of view.

He was about to completely detach from that space; he lowered his head and glanced at his own palm.

This body had some kind of strong link with the War God.

That link was the reason Sulan absolutely had to "grab" him.

But He Ao could very clearly sense that the source of that link did not come from him.

When He Ao communicated with the War God, he usually had to rely on Nell as an intermediary; aside from when he used the Nell Character Card, the link between him and the War God was actually very weak.

This level of link was not enough to form a core Mysticism link capable of dragging over even the War God’s Tomb.

If this link did not come from He Ao, then it came from this body, from Denos.

Denos also had nothing much to do with the War God.

Then there was only one answer left: this link came from the Coffin of Time.

Countless thoughts converged in He Ao’s mind, then were quickly sorted out.

In Denos’s memories, he found the Coffin of Time in a cave-city ruin suspected to be from ancient Kovotra.

The Coffin of Time was a "Grace" the ruling Priest of that city obtained after praying to a Divine Being.

This kind of "Grace item" naturally had a high likelihood of having some strong correlation with a Divine Being.

And from Denos’s memories, there remained some kind of mural related to a Divine Being in that ruin; though most of the mural had been destroyed, one could still vaguely see along its edges the structure of some kind of Weapon.

If the Divine Being worshiped in that mountain ruin was precisely the War God, then everything made sense.

Sulan had also once excavated that mountain ruin.

So his power was red—did he obtain some kind of War God inheritance?

So during his rule, he was obsessed with war and slaughter, obsessed with Sacrifice.

The one he Sacrificed to was the War God?

War was not that he wanted to wage it for its own sake, but his method of pleasing the War God?

But then why did he follow the Grim Reaper? Did he enter the Netherworld because of death, meet the Grim Reaper there, and even gain a chance at resurrection?

The era Sulan lived in was before the Great Storm, and according to that "history book," the War God died in the Great Storm, and the Grim Reaper was one of the killers of the War God.

Thought after thought converged in He Ao’s mind, then were quickly sorted out.

"Old man?" At this time, Anke, who had just been flung out of the passage, also saw He Ao; with a bit of confusion and doubt he ran over, looked at He Ao, then cautiously glanced left and right at He Ao’s cheeks. "Are you really the old man?"

"Yes." He Ao nodded slightly.

After getting confirmation, Anke also let out a breath, scratched his head, and laughed. "Old man, you’re way more handsome than I imagined; I thought you’d be really dark,"

"Those black lights are the manifestation of my power." He Ao withdrew his gaze from Anke and looked toward the sky.

The Firmament, which had been bright and sunny before, had at some unknown point already been covered by heavy clouds; the whole sky was unnaturally dim, as if night had already fallen.

"So that’s it. I thought it was because you didn’t look very good, so you covered yourself with that black humanoid form." Anke scratched his head and laughed awkwardly.

He Ao: ...

He glanced at Anke. "Find a place to hide."

"Huh?" Anke froze.

Boom—

At that moment, the ground beneath his feet suddenly shuddered once.

He looked around in some confusion, only to find that the tall buildings around him seemed to be trembling as well.

The entire land—every area within his gaze—started trembling at this moment.

"What happened?" He looked around in a daze. "An earthquake?"

"No." He Ao’s gaze swept around, glanced at the slightly trembling high wall, then he raised his head and looked toward the sky.

Anke also raised his head and looked toward the sky.

He only saw those black clouds pressing downward at a speed visible to the meat eyes; he said in some panic, "The sky’s collapsing? Those dark clouds are pressing down?"

"It’s not the clouds moving down," He Ao fixed his gaze on the sky and spoke softly, "it’s us moving up."

He lowered his head again and looked once more at the distant high wall.

"We’re moving up?" Anke looked around, then seemed to react a bit, and said with a tremor, "The entire Vissen is moving up?"

"Mm." He Ao nodded slightly.

"What the hell?" Anke’s eyes widened a little. "Old man, for real?"

Boom—

Right then, the city that had been trembling slightly finally came to a stop; Anke was shaken, swaying left and right by that sudden halt, and only after quite a while barely managed to steady himself.

He raised his head and looked around; everything around him seemed to have changed, and yet seemed unchanged.

He turned his head to look at He Ao, only to find that He Ao was raising his head to look at the sky.

He also raised his head to look at the sky, but the sky was still covered by dark clouds, just like before.

"Old man, what’s wrong?" he asked cautiously.

But this time, before he could get an answer from He Ao, the entire ground began to tremble violently.

Above his head, that heavy layer of dark clouds, that pitch‑black sky, like a spherical lid being turned, began to "rotate."

But very soon, he realized that it was not the sky that was rotating, but the "land" beneath his feet.