Chapter 1488: Chapter 1488: God and the Usurper / Mission Complete

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Watching that slender figure, countless thoughts flashed through He Ao’s mind.

Those seemingly neglected memories also began to spread through his mind at this moment.

Everything went so smoothly, Di Man walked into the Fantasy City overlapped with his real city without any suspicion and walked into his trap without any hindrance.

Di Man’s fatal flaw is his status, and it just so happens that the Julia Family possesses the Embrace of the Beauty Goddess that can erode status. Coincidentally, He Ao attended the Julia Family’s banquet and met his ‘old acquaintance’ Selena, who was very likely to help him.

And the parchment inscribed with the Embrace of the Beauty Goddess was conveniently in Selena’s hand.

Everything fits logically, so reasonably that it doesn’t arouse any suspicion.

But everything went so smoothly.

So smoothly, it seemed as if aided by a ‘god’.

That slender and elongated figure hovered in the air, bearing some resemblance to the vulnerable-looking girl that Di Man’s incarnation had turned into.

At this moment, He Ao vaguely realized why Di Man’s clone habitually transformed into that girl’s shape.

His clone indeed had already approached madness, so much so that Di Man himself was already edging on madness, merely suppressing it through some means.

And as the figure looked at He Ao, the Fantasy City filled with ruins began to blur and dissipate, starting from the periphery like melting ice cream.

He Ao couldn’t find any trace of its power usage, nor could he sense the presence of its power.

But He Ao had a vague feeling that this power covering the Fantasy City was the invisible power Di Man had manipulated before.

This slender figure is probably the true owner of that invisible power Di Man previously used.

The power it used didn’t give off a strong oppressive and terrifying feeling, and He Ao even felt it wasn’t stronger than the intensity of the invisible power Di Man used.

Yet it could easily begin to erase the entire Fantasy City.

The instant the figure’s gaze fell on He Ao, his entire body suddenly stiffened.

At that moment, he seemed to lose control over his own body, and slender lines began to surface on his forehead, then connected, seemingly forming the outline of a hazy ‘eye’.

But the ‘eye’ inscribed on He Ao’s forehead didn’t help him ‘expand’ his field of view; instead, like a sharp spike, it drove inward.

It drove towards He Ao’s brain, towards He Ao’s soul, seeking to peek into all his secrets and stories.

The simplistic drawn eye remained high up in the sky, observing everything He Ao did.

It truly was using He Ao to deal with Di Man.

But obviously, it also had a very strong ‘interest’ in He Ao.

It was curious about the source of He Ao’s power, curious about He Ao’s changes.

However, perhaps the act of He Ao sacrificing himself to kill the Dark Lizard worked, as it didn’t suspect the identity of ‘Paxiu’.

Or maybe, it didn’t completely suspect.

Otherwise, the system should have popped up with a mission failure message.

He Ao tried to summon his remaining power to resist this ‘paintbrush’, but at that moment, he seemed to lose all sense of his power, leaving the brush to naturally paint.

He Ao knew that this time, he was probably facing a true Divine Incarnation.

This guy was so strong, yet insisted on waiting until the last moment when both were on the verge of losing before leaping out to seize the fruits of victory, how devious.

His good friends, however, were righteous, arriving without the slightest hesitation when summoned.

At this moment, a radiance flashed across He Ao’s chest.

He Ao immediately raised his hand, grabbing at the radiance on his chest.

But the hand he extended only grasped at air.

The hazy radiance had already detached from his body when he made his move, flying toward that slender figure.

And during the process, it condensed into a small flower with only a single purple petal left.

He Ao watched the small flower fly away from his front, leaping out in one single step, his gaze fixed on the blurry slender figure standing ahead.

Sizzle—

A yellow radiance suddenly bloomed from that slender figure’s body.

Then, dense yellow radiance, like spiritual snakes in motion, traversed through the slender figure’s body and coiled around its form.

Over the torn earth, dazzling yellow lines scintillated with dazzling brilliance.

The slender figure’s actions paused slightly under the tremulous yellow radiance.

The Array of Embrace of the Beauty Goddess still existed.

Sure enough, this guy wasn’t a truly descended incarnation but rather an incarnation conceived from possessing Di Man.

This guy’s true form should be far away from here, unwilling to pay the cost for a long-distance incarnation descent.

So it only projected a simplistic drawn eye here, indirectly guiding He Ao to kill Di Man, and then taking over Di Man’s body, reclaiming the invisible powers controlled by Di Man, directly transforming Di Man into its incarnation.

But since it occupied someone else’s body, it had to bear the other’s fate.

Such as those powers of Embrace of the Beauty Goddess that were constantly entangled with Di Man.

And as those yellow radiance lines entwined around the slender figure, the surrounding city began to collapse at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He Ao had just aggregated the last strength of the entire Fantasy City, injected it into the Array of Embrace of the Beauty Goddess, attempting to activate the power of Embrace of the Beauty Goddess.

Perhaps the Embrace of the Beauty Goddess would be ineffective against a true Divine Being, but he was gambling.

Gambling that Di Man hadn’t completely died, gambling that the ‘Divine Being’ in front of him hadn’t entirely taken over Di Man’s body, that Di Man’s body hadn’t completely become its incarnation.

In the end, he guessed right.

The flowing yellow radiance also emerged from He Ao’s body, forcibly amplifying the effects of the Embrace of the Beauty Goddess, bringing the ‘blessing’ from the Beauty Goddess within him to a critical point.

The Embrace of the Beauty Goddess also began to diminish his status and spirituality.

However, He Ao didn’t react in any way; instead, he maintained his forward movement, letting the Embrace of the Beauty Goddess erode him.

And ahead of him, that slender figure’s actions paused slightly.

Some sort of void was sweeping over the slender figure, wiping away those yellow lines like watercolor.

And on the ground, the dazzlingly radiant Array of Embrace of the Beauty Goddess seemed to lose its anchor.

The scattered radiance and the exquisite lines began to shatter, dispersing into the sky like starlight.

But at that instant, He Ao also grasped the small flower before him, tearing off its petal.

He made his wish.

And directly ahead of him and the flower, that slender figure was ‘watching’ He Ao.

The power of the Seven-color Flower originated from it.

It seemed somewhat curious about what kind of wish He Ao would make, targeting the source of its power.

Bang—

A soft noise echoed in the void, and the small flower whose last petal had been pulled off shattered completely at the ever-collapsing city’s epicenter, transforming into scattered radiance.

The surroundings seemed unchanged.

The rapidly traced simplistic drawn eye continued its outline on He Ao’s forehead.

Only this Fantasy City was collapsing faster than before.

That slender figure stood in the city’s center, its expression unchanged as it observed He Ao.

As if observing a dancing, struggling ant on the ground.

Can the power of a divine being be used against the divine being itself?

At this moment, He Ao’s thoughts slightly darkened.

Failed?

But just as this thought emerged, the slender figure suddenly trembled and began to rapidly twist and mutate, as if wanting to change the form of the body, revealing the figure of a man.

The figure of Di Man.

However, very quickly, this figure was ‘modified’ back.

It succeeded.

He Ao breathed a sigh of relief.

His wish was simple, not about interference or destruction, but,

‘Enhance Di Man’s self-will.’

He was well aware that the Seven-color Flower was highly likely related to the existence before him, and the opponent surely had the ability to circumvent wish attacks, perhaps even to directly erase wishes aimed at itself.

However, at this moment, the body, and the ‘master’ of the body’s power, were not singular.

Di Man still maintained control over the body’s intangible power for a considerable amount of time.

He Ao even felt that Di Man might have, to some extent, seized part of the ‘authority’ of the existence before him.

Because previously, the intelligence agency personnel He Ao encountered who attempted to assassinate the President all used similar eye doodles as arrays, even praying for power.

Di Man would naturally not truly allow his subordinates to pray for the power of the true divine being, as once polluted, those subordinates might no longer be his.

Thus, it’s highly possible that those arrays were directed toward Di Man himself, who, through some method, to a certain extent, grafted the divine symbol onto himself.

This might also be the core of how he could control those intangible powers.

To a certain extent, he made himself ‘equivalent’ to a divine being.

If so, Di Man should also be able to interfere with the power of the Seven-color Flower.

This may be why he was previously confident he could take the Seven-color Flower from He Ao.

So, He Ao made this wish.

He knew that if Di Man wanted to live, he would certainly strive to fulfill this wish.

And accompanying the slender humanoid’s twisting change.

The doodle eye painted on He Ao’s forehead also halted briefly.

At that moment, He Ao’s consciousness suddenly vanished.

······

When He Ao regained his ‘field of view’, what entered his sight was a scene of dense violet mist.

Invisible lines glowing with brilliance wandered through the mist, swaying, sketching out the shape of hills.

And as He Ao’s consciousness returned, these lines quickly gathered around him.

Simultaneously, the surrounding violet mist trembled instantly, as if a gaze spanning time and space was swiftly approaching here.

Dream Phantom

This is the Character Card formed after the association of Cito and Winding Hill.

This mist clearly no longer resides in the real world.

Like the ‘city’ constructed through Daytime City Building that He Ao relied on, it seems to reside at the intersection of reality and illusion.

But He Ao didn’t have time to study these things at the moment.

He activated Super Memory, raised his gaze, looking at the fate lines intertwined with himself in the dense mist.

Most of these fate lines came from Saint Joen City, but there were some special ones.

Soon, He Ao found within these fate lines a line connected to the depths of the void.

He calmed his mind and sensed forward along this fate line’s direction.

A vague, collapsing city appeared in his perception.

Meanwhile, in the center of that city, a twisted, constantly changing figure suddenly raised its head to look at the sky.

He Ao immediately withdrew his gaze.

Indeed, the creation of the Character Card’s ability is related to the Character Card itself.

The tumultuous violet mist surrounding him intensified fiercely, carrying an asphyxiating tremor.

As if within this boiling mist, some terrifying presence was rapidly approaching.

He Ao withdrew his gaze, attempting to mobilize the power within the surrounding mist, to perceive the existence of that city once more.

Then he tried to bring his body closer to that city through mystical connections.

Though he was now at the boundary between reality and illusion, generally speaking, such boundary spaces usually have a fixed ‘exit’.

If He Ao wanted to go directly to the dungeon world, he would likely arrive in Saint Joen City.

While the place anchored by Fantasy City is in Ains.

Under normal circumstances, He Ao could not instantly move from Saint Joen City to Ains City using a Character Card.

However, because the space of Fantasy City and Dream Phantom both reside in the intersection of reality and illusion,

and in this boundary, there is no concept of space.

He can just exploit this characteristic, relying on the mystical connections of the two shared origins, to directly ‘absorb’ the Dream Phantom there, opening a channel between them.

Soon, he felt some kind of ‘response’, a ‘gateway’ rapidly being outlined in the vibrating violet mist in front of him.

These actions sounded complex, but actually took only the blink of an eye.

From the moment he found Fantasy City to the moment he opened the channel, it was just a fleeting moment.

However, before the invisible gateway was outlined completely, He Ao closed his eyes and vanished into the dense violet mist.

Almost at the moment he closed his eyes, a hazy, graceful, and absolutely beautiful silhouette emerged in the tumultuous violet mist, gazing at where He Ao used to be.

Then, it turned its gaze to the fully outlined gateway.

······

Just having returned to Fantasy City, He Ao saw the constantly twisting and deforming figure in the city center stabilize once more, becoming a slender figure again.

That figure was now raising its head, gazing at He Ao.

Clearly, it had noticed the changes in He Ao’s body just now.

The engraved eye at He Ao’s brow started to be sketched quickly several times faster than before.

Yet He Ao merely gazed calmly at the text in his field of view

[Task Completed]

[This task evaluation is being settled···]

[Returning to the original world in 90 seconds]

[Return immediately (90)]

It seems Di Man is truly dead this time.

And then, the slender figure in the city center abruptly raised its head to look up.

Above the sky in the city center, a door had unknowingly been outlined, then slammed open.

Dense violet mist surged down like a pouring waterfall.