Chapter 1026: Chapter 1026

He Ao shifted his gaze forward, witnessing Levi’s shattered body, which had dispersed into a cluster of stars, rapidly reconstituting in the darkness, then just as quickly collapsing again.

It seemed as though he had entirely lost the ability to move, invisible illusions were slowly being stripped from his body, and a twisted and violent storm of contamination swept through the entire space in an instant, even overpowering the pervasive nothingness.

"We must deal with him."

He Ao retracted his gaze from the starry sky overhead and looked towards the Abyssal Prisoner shrouded in thunder and Arrays in the distance.

At this moment, the Abyssal Prisoner appeared to tense up its body, staring up at the sky, its entire body in shock and convulsing as if it had perceived something inconceivable.

"It’s no use... Run... Don’t stay here..."

The words transmitted by Levi into He Ao’s mind began to tremble violently, and the violent contamination, like a wave, surged along their connection into He Ao’s brain, "I’m sorry... I thought I had successfully completed the Stripping... but..."

The violent contamination engulfed Levi’s last words, and his constellation-composed figure continued to twist and change.

A figure that was twisting within his body was frantically gesturing He Ao to leave this place.

And above He Ao’s head, the lack of void outside the great hole illuminated the dazzling Starlight, with the shining stars’ light connecting together, outlining a massive silhouette.

A vast and distant aura emanated from the silhouette that had been outlined.

After quietly gazing at this outline, He Ao felt an endless contamination explode in his mind.

The silhouette seemed aware of He Ao’s ’gaze,’ Its sight swept across He Ao and along with the violent contamination, looked towards the twisting figure of ’Levi.’

The illusion ’separated’ from Levi’s body became, in that moment, a giant hand composed of stars that rose high, in an instant traversing the surrounding space and reaching towards the Abyssal Prisoner veiled in thunder.

"Run... Don’t be reckless... We... can’t kill the Abyssal Prisoner anymore..."

With the raucous noise, fragments of Levi’s words were conveyed into He Ao’s mind, "It wants to... use that guy as a stepping stone... to delve deeper into the Abyss... The power of the Abyss is spreading... if we don’t leave now... you’ll be pulled into the Abyss by the Tide..."

He Ao calmly glanced at the lofty silhouette in the sky, letting the violent contamination explode in his mind, the red giant’s body already tottering under the erosion of void and the impact of contamination, he slowly spoke, his voice hoarse, "Can you hold back that entity that has parasitized its power in you, that one..."

He paused briefly, then calmly said, "Mysterious Shadow."

It was as if the entire world fell silent at that moment, and even the noisy voices seemed to stop in He Ao’s ears.

Wrapped and entwined in distorted contamination, and creeping towards madness, Levi appeared to fall into a brief shock.

"I told you, I know what we would face,"

He Ao did not wait for Levi to react, but continued to send information swiftly,

"The purpose of your research on the Abyss is to rid yourself of the contamination from the Mysterious Shadow, isn’t it?"

"The Mysterious Shadow incessantly attempts to erode your sanity, seeking to transform you into His servant, while you wish to harness the power of the Abyss to combat His force and strip His contamination from yourself."

"However, you did not foresee that the Abyssal Prisoner and his followers, as well as those associated with the Abyss, were drawn by your research. They took advantage of your attempt to strip away the contamination, manipulated the Abyssal Tide, and dragged you into the Abyss."

"This is why your office became an interstice between reality and the Abyss. Certainly, you had anticipated the possibility of the power of the Abyss leaking, and had prepared an Array in advance to seal your office. Therefore, after your disappearance, your entire office showed no signs of abnormality."

"In fact, your research on the Abyss may have been deliberately guided by the Mysterious Shadow. He is trying to use you as bait to attract and ’capture’ the Angel of the Abyss, and by doing so, use it as a stepping stone to deepen His connection with the Abyss."

"Including our ’hunting’ operation today, His reason for not taking action is that He is waiting for us to seriously injure the Abyssal Prisoner, causing more Abyssal powers to be triggered, giving Him the opportunity to control the Abyss even more deeply."

"If I’m not guessing wrong, He must have a strong desire for the Abyss."

"With the power of Divine Beings already descended, if He gains control over the Abyssal Prisoner, I’m afraid Yilan City will fall into an even more perilous situation. My departure now would be futile."

"However, we are not completely without a chance to end all this."

"Just think, if we give up now, you will still be dragged into the Abyss and eventually be completely eroded and controlled by the Mysterious Shadow. Nothing will change. Taking a stand—this might be our last chance."

In fact, He Ao’s speculation about the whole event began with Corvey and Scott, the two ’Commanders’ who had once entered the central ruins of the Federation.

After understanding Scott’s situation, He Ao had always held a question.

Being from Yilan, why had both Corvey and Scott once gone to the ruins in the central Federation that were contaminated by the Abyss?

And why, after encountering the Abyss, did they go through twists and turns to return to Yilan City?

He Ao didn’t know the reason, so he made a hypothesis that Yilan City might have had the aura of the Abyss from the beginning. This aura had a high rank but did not possess strong power, hardly noticeable.

It was very likely that Scott and Corvey had inadvertently come into contact with such high-rank Abyssal Qi, and received the ’mark’ of the Abyss.

Of course, they might not be the only ones who accidentally came into contact with the Abyssal Qi, but only they, by serendipity, went to the central Federation. Having touched the Abyssal Qi before, they were invisibly attracted by those ruins and once again came into contact with powers related to the Abyss.

During this process, Corvey stopped in time, not going further, while Scott went deeper into the ruins and received the ’gift’ from the Abyssal Prisoner.

Afterwards, having further contacted the Abyss, they were attracted by the pervasive Abyssal Qi of Yilan City and naturally returned to Yilan City.

And if this hypothesis is valid, why did Yilan City initially have the aura of the Abyss?

After the eradication of the Abyssal powers that arrived with the removal of Scott, it becomes clear that Yilan City has no other Abyss-related forces.

This means that before Scott, the powers of the Abyss were controlled and did not spread.

Therefore, the only existence in Yilan City that could have been related to the power of the Abyss at this level and could confine the Abyssal powers from spreading, is the angel of Yilan City, the Honorary Speaker ’Levi’.

Combining this experience with the ’help’ he had received when Scott dragged him into the Abyss, He Ao went straight to Levi’s office and indeed discovered traces of the Abyss.

And by studying the Array left by Levi, he realized that Levi possessed substantial knowledge in Mysticism and was very likely a scholar or Mage-type Angel.

At that point, he speculated that Levi had possibly been researching the power of the Abyss all along.

However, he couldn’t be certain why Levi was studying the Abyss – whether it was purely academic curiosity that went wrong, or if there were other reasons.

It wasn’t until he saw Levi’s ’Mythical Form’ in the cracks between the Abyss and the present world in Levi’s office.

The figure constructed from stars was strikingly similar to the power once displayed by the Mysterious Shadow.

From this, he inferred that Levi might be an ’Angel’ connected to the Mysterious Shadow through a specific path.

Having once encountered the believers of the Mysterious Shadow during the event in Main World’s Eren City, he learned about the summoning ritual of the Mysterious Shadow.

The core prayer of the Mysterious Shadow is simple: ’In the endless Abyss, only Your reflection; the brilliant stars ultimately return to Mysticism.’

Based on He Ao’s long-term experience interacting with various friends, a Divine Being’s core prayer is not just an integral part of the communication ritual but also a ’positioning’ of the Divine Being’s own existence.

For instance, a good friend’s positioning is as ’Truth’.

If one breaks down the core prayer of the Mysterious Shadow, they’ll find that its positioning involves two aspects: one is the Abyss, the other is the Stars.

In fact, based purely on the prayer, both the Abyss and the Stars should be part of Its Authority.

The green color of the power shown both by the Abyss and the Mysterious Shadow suggests that at a fundamental level, there might be some commonality between the two.

But when He Ao was in Levi’s office, in that gap between the Abyss and the present world, he witnessed that the Abyss seemed to have its own ’position’.

It could command its own Angels, and had its own ’rituals’, and ’prayers’.

And the Abyssal Prisoner, deeply controlled by the Abyss, didn’t seem to obey the consciousness of the Mysterious Shadow, which indicated that the Abyss was actually not under the jurisdiction of the Mysterious Shadow.

At least not presently.

He wasn’t sure where the loophole was, or if it involved Mysticism Knowledge unknown to him, but the Mysterious Shadow did not control the Abyss that should have been under Its ’control’ according to Its own prayer.

However, this indicates that the Mysterious Shadow likely very much wants to bring the Abyss under Its control.

And using this as a base to analyze the remaining issues, very clear solutions emerge.

The Abyss itself might reject the Mysterious Shadow, and Levi, as an Angel possibly connected to the Mysterious Shadow, might have been contaminated to some extent.

Then he tried to research the Abyss, hoping to use its power to ’Stripping’ out the contamination from the Mysterious Shadow.

But in the end, his research on the Abyss went awry.

This was the initial conclusion He Ao had deduced, and then he realized a problem.

Levi himself was a meticulous person, which could be seen from the Array he set up in his office to guard against the sudden leakage of Abyssal power; he was prepared for the possibility of ’things going awry’.

So then, why didn’t he secure the isolation of the Abyssal Qi, allowing Scott and others to be affected by it and resulting in a chain of reactions that eventually attracted the surveillance of the Angel of the Abyss?

There were two possibilities: one was that he indeed had been negligent, his Mysticism Knowledge insufficient; the second was that he too had been ’deceived’, with his study of the Abyss being the result of being deliberately ’guided’.

Considering Levi might have been contaminated by the Mysterious Shadow, and the objective of the Mysterious Shadow, He Ao leaned towards the latter possibility.

The Mysterious Shadow used Levi and the entire Yilan City as ’bait’, fishing for the arrival of a high-ranking Abyssal being.

Initially, the Mysterious Shadow’s plan might have been to summon the arrival of the Abyssal Prisoner, sacrifice Yilan City, strengthen the connection between the Abyssal Prisoner and the Copy World, to prevent it from easily escaping.

Then take the opportunity to allow Its own believers to enter the vicinity of Yilan City to summon Itself or use Its own power to fish Levi out of the Abyss, then through Levi’s body corrode and control the Abyssal Prisoner, and thereby use the connection between the Abyssal Prisoner and the Abyss to influence the Abyss.

Of course, because of He Ao’s interference, Its plan had to be modified, but evidently, It was planning on making He Ao part of the ’bait’.

In this process, It likely deceived Levi, pretending Its own power had been ’excluded’ by him, and took the opportunity to hide Its power.

Levi realized that It might intervene, but he did not detect that Its power was still within his own body, which caught him off guard.

Hearing what He Ao said, Levi fell silent again. He wasn’t stupid and quickly grasped the key points. The voice carrying the storm of contamination echoed in He Ao’s mind again,

"Your analysis is impressive... I might be able... to hold It back... but only for a moment... My years of research... are not entirely fruitless... But... what do you plan... to do... I can’t think of... any way... to break the situation... Ah—"

Corvey’s figure, made up of stars, suddenly twisted, and the starry giant hand that separated from behind his figure, originally reaching for the Abyssal Prisoner, paused in that instant.

Then, this hand began to rapidly withdraw, but in the next second, it extended forward again, and this arm, carrying the surge of contamination, froze on the spot, as if two consciousnesses within were struggling for control.

The power of the void around gradually spread, the Abyssal Tide filling the entire space, assimilating everything nearby into the Abyss itself.

The red glow on He Ao’s body flickered violently, as if about to shatter, the power from the War God Projection completely depleted.

At this moment, above the Firmament, nearly at the instant when the starry giant hand paused, the figure outlined by the stars reached out its ’hand’.

The vast and mighty power crossed endless time and space, about to descend into this void.

That great Mysterious Shadow was not prepared to let two insignificant existences interfere with Its plan.

And at this time, He Ao raised his hand, reaching into the inner pocket of his coat wrapped in red glow to pull out a folded, ultra-thin, cheap backpack.

Looking up at the outline of the stars above his head, he quickly retrieved a fountain pen, a disposable ink bottle, and an array of small items from his coat, and swiftly answered the question Levi had just posed,