The female Cleaner, who had no idea what her mother's killer planned to do with her mother's "inheritance," suddenly lifted her head at a familiar scent as she lay on the back of a giant snake.

She wrinkled her little nose forcefully, as if she had discovered something, and immediately reached out with delight in her eyes to tug on Leon's King of Nightmares grey robe.

"It's Uncle Grandpa! I can smell him! Uncle Grandpa is just ahead!"

Scent?

After glancing at the Cleaner's pale nose tip, Leon instinctively sniffed, but even in his True God state, he could only catch a whiff of overwhelming sulfur and nothing else.

"It's true!"

Seeing suspicion in Leon's eyes, the Cleaner hurriedly said:

"My nose is also an abnormal object. It will not smell wrong. As long as we go in this direction, we will definitely find Uncle Grandpa!"

Should we go find the Aquarius Director first?

Suppressing the urge to touch the Cleaner's nose to see if that abnormal object was called [Dog Nose], Leon turned his head to look in the direction she pointed and began to ponder.

...

After stuffing the souls of all living creatures in Rehe City into the Nightmare River to thwart the plans of the Heart Lake God, Leon led the Cleaner, who had relieved herself, and her slightly cross-eyed drinking brother, along with a million nightmares to the underground Rehe.

While the path to the core in the underground Rehe was extremely hidden, it didn't take long for a million nightmares to find it with their full search effort. The trouble, however, was that the specifics of the core path didn't quite match Leon and others' previous expectations.

When they smashed open the freshly congealed obsidian at the entrance and entered the core path, what appeared before Leon was not a straight, empty conduit to the core but a chaotic network of fissures, more intertwined and branched than capillaries, like a spider web.

The so-called core path, rather than a "path," was more like mantle fissures forcibly drilled and eroded by a sea of magma surging up from the core, devoid of any pattern.

As far as the eye could see, apart from the heavy flowing magma and the rubbing, squeezing thick rock layers, there were streams of liquid bright red iron swaying so much it was hard to keep one's eyes open, and without obvious markings, it was impossible to find the true "main road."

Even knowing that going straight down would lead to the core to find the Aquarius Director and Slaughter King Association people, if they strayed into a dead end, they would either have to backtrack through metal lava rivers to find the route again or drill down through the planet's flesh.

Fortunately, as the "pioneers" of the core path, the Aquarius Director and the members of the Slaughter King Association must have engaged in extensive battles, and by following the destroyed environment, one could barely find the proper route. It's just that…

...

The direction Melly smelled this time seemed quite distant from the areas with battle traces?

Leon didn't immediately make a decision after scanning between the path pointed out by the Cleaner and another path laden with battle traces, but under the Cleaner's anxious persuasion, he stepped onto the Nightmare River and headed towards the pathway with battle traces.

"Don't go! This has to be a fake!"

Seeing Leon not choosing her indicated route, the Cleaner clinging to the swamp king snake scales anxiously said:

"That Slaughter King God said it controlled [False Illusion] and [Heart Lake]! What we see might be false!"

"Yes, but can you confirm that what you smelled is a hundred percent real?"

Guiding the invisible black river to the path with battle traces, Leon explained calmly while stroking the shattered rock walls:

"Back on the Sky Clipper, I felt that the Heart Lake God knew too much about you, and later his actions suggested he had deep knowledge of the Aquarius Branch and Director Baltro.

So, we have to assume he knows what kinds of abnormal objects the Aquarius Branch stocks, guesses you'd bring this dog nose abnormal object down, and specifically countered... Uh… Found it!"

After carefully touching the rock wall for a while, Leon succeeded in finding what he was looking for amidst the shattered rock wall.

[Name: False Illusion Skin (Disguise, Illusion)]

[Appearance: A strange skin that looks, smells, sounds, and even feels like a rock wall but isn't actually a rock wall]

[Ability: Disguise fake objects, false illusions]

[Cost: Requires possession of part of the "False Illusion" Authority, and a self-penetration value exceeding 60 points]

[File: When the False Illusion and Heart Lake God passed by this rock wall, he gently rubbed it with his palm, leaving part of his skin tissue and eroding and falsifying the rock wall conditions in an attempt to mislead later comers]

[Evaluation: An almost impeccable disguise-type abnormality, fully capable of being mistaken for the real thing, though due to being made from hand skin, a slight salty taste of hand sweat can be detected if licked]

[Contamination Value: 0.1]

[Through your observation and induction, you've obtained substantial intel on "False Illusion Skin," activating the Colorful Badge "Materialist Soul (Crimson).]

Having understood the effective rules of "False Illusion Skin," your resistance greatly increases against this abnormal object, and you can now shield from general influences.]

"..."

Goddamn salty hand sweat!

Leon retrieved his hand from the rock wall with a slight twitch in his mouth, wiped it on the King of Nightmares' grey robe with disdain, and nodded towards the Cleaner:

"You're right; this side's traces are indeed fake, all illusions created by that False Illusion and Heart Lake God."

"Yes, indeed! There really are no scents here!"

Seeing Leon wasn't fooled, the Cleaner couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and then said:

"Since this side is fake, then we should..."

"We should head in this direction."

"?"

Seeing the new path Leon indicated, as devoid of smell as the others, the Cleaner paused, but Leon didn't explain to her. Instead, he rode the Nightmare River toward the core path surrounded by "snowflake dots."

When facing other abnormal objects, the Materialism's enhanced resistance only partially blocks abnormal effects and cannot completely immunize—serving a supplementary function only—but it's a different story for something like "False Illusion Skin."

After being weakened by "Materialism," genuine items still appear one hundred percent real, while fakes made by "False Illusion Skin" look like a faded painting, only seventy percent real to my eyes.

Yet in the face of authenticity vs. forgery, if something isn't completely genuine, it's one hundred percent fully bogus. From now on, the disguises of the False Illusion and Heart Lake God have no effect on me!