Chapter 1486: Chapter 1486: Change

“What is this?!”

A brilliant yellow light surged between the cracked earth, forming an invisible yet grand array.

This array was composed of simple yet elegant thin lines, gathering together as if it were an open embrace, ready to envelop those within the array.

The array nearly covered the entire city, or rather, it seemed to have long been integrated with the city, as if it were a part of this fantasy city.

And Di Man, at this moment, was within the array, ’embraced’ by these slender lines of light.

Within this luminous embrace, his breath was rapidly weakening.

Di Man calmly watched all this, frowning tightly, “The power of Venus?”

He turned his head, looking at He Ao, who was fixed in the air by countless hands. “The Julia Family is helping you?”

His gaze swept over the light covering his body, trying to forcibly remove it.

He was not truly worried about the light’s erosion of his spirituality and power, as he could temporarily hide such ‘damage’ conceptually, allowing him to return to full strength at any time.

But this light was not only eroding those elements, it was also slowly weakening his ‘position’.

And this weakening of position was fatal.

He thought he understood this so-called ‘Venus’ well enough.

However, he never expected that, besides those famous across the Federation as ‘poisons’ against the Talent Sequences and Extraordinary Power, there were also arrays that could weaken even the position.

This array was likely a ‘trap’ specifically aimed at Higher Beings.

In another sense, for Higher Beings, weakening their ‘position’ was indeed the real ‘poison’.

Di Man glanced at the figure beside him, whose pupils were still filled with red-purple light, and withdrew his gaze.

This fellow probably had forgotten about setting such a trap himself.

He raised his hand, invisible power gathering before him, forming long, slender hands reaching toward the yellow light entwined around him.

The yellow light at the outer edges, not yet reacted, was tightly grasped by those hands, pulled out like threading a needle.

The yellow light that was pulled out seemed to lose its target for a moment, twisted once, and vanished swiftly.

Though the array could weaken position, its power was still too weak.

Di Man watched the extracted light, his gaze turning down, as more invisible, slender hands extended, beginning to remove the light from his body.

The yellow light frantically coiled around his body, trying to further diminish his position.

But quickly, more and more yellow light was grasped by those slender hands, gently pulled outwards with force.

And just as the yellow light was about to be completely extracted, those invisible, slender hands suddenly trembled.

Fine spikes surged out from those hands, covering them restlessly, rising and falling with the applied force.

Watching those spikes, Di Man’s face slightly changed.

He immediately severed some of the slender hands, attempting to relieve the pressure.

Pa—

But before he could make further moves, accompanied by a faint, invisible sound, the slender hands suddenly shook, and fine, restless spikes seeped from them.

“No!!!”

Di Man instantly reached out, trying to stabilize them directly with his hands.

The spikes, like sharp thorns piercing from the inside of a bag, instantly tore apart all the slender hands.

The yellow light released from the hands immediately retreated, penetrating into Di Man’s body.

At this moment, the powerful Extraordinary Power surrounding Di Man began to collapse at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The wounds he hid seemed to be shedding their secrecy, gradually revealing themselves.

Di Man immediately withdrew his hand, trying to suppress the wounds about to be exposed.

Boom—

With the withdrawal of power, the invisible hands reaching out from the sky also collapsed with a boom.

He Ao, forcibly held in the sky, fell and crashed onto a half-destroyed high-rise building.

He struggled to stand, the red-purple light covering his pupils gradually dissipating slightly.

The previously unseen power covering his body was rapidly withdrawing.

The invisible strands that had snapped around him reattached themselves to his body.

These strands had never been ‘cut’; they had just lost their target.

Like someone pressed underwater, unexposed to sunlight.

Now, as the power suppressing He Ao faded, his ‘floating up’ allowed these strands to reconnect once more.

And as these forces revived and the strands reconnected, scattered memories drifted into He Ao’s mind.

He watched the surrounding flow of yellow light, a word ‘surfacing’ in his mind: ‘Embrace of the Beauty Goddess’.

This was something Selena gave him.

After He Ao relayed the situation, Selena offered her ‘help’, giving He Ao a scroll of parchment.

The array on the parchment was the ‘Embrace of the Beauty Goddess’.

By infusing power into the parchment, this array could be deployed.

But, who was Selena again?

As fragmented memories continued to emerge, the light flickering in He Ao’s eyes gradually cleared.

And at this time, Di Man, enveloped in yellow light in the sky, had already lowered his head, gazing at He Ao.

“Did you poison the entire city? To evade my perception?” His gaze shifted, coldly fixing on He Ao. “Why are you unaffected?”

Di Man indeed sensed this city harbored some power, but it was evidently entangled with some secret, with too many hidden powers. As long as it didn’t target him, he paid it no mind.

After all, once He Ao was dealt with, the city would naturally collapse, and he hadn’t sought much ‘knowledge’, avoiding unnecessary attentions.

But he hadn’t anticipated that He Ao actually poisoned the entire city.

Listening to Di Man’s questioning, He Ao only quickly scanned the massive array covering the city.

Some fragmented memories continued to surface in his mind.

He had been using the city’s power to activate the array, which only worked against Higher Beings.

Those within the array would receive the ‘blessing’ of Venus, accumulating these ‘blessings’ inside them.

The higher their position, the more Higher Power they used, the more blessings accumulated, until reaching a threshold when these blessings would erupt, stripping them of spirituality and position.

He Ao himself held these blessings, but they hadn’t accumulated enough to reach the critical point.

Looking at He Ao who didn’t answer, Di Man sighed.

His hidden wounds were now appearing at a speed visible to the naked eye, accompanied by the rapid weakening of his body.

He raised his hand once more, and the invisible force above his head gathered again, quickly forming a slender palm.

But in an instant, the palm shattered with a crash, and his expression darkened.

He withdrew his gaze and looked at He Ao, “Your poison indeed restrains me,”

“But I’m not entirely helpless,” he reached out towards He Ao, smiling, “The Seven-color Flower is still with you, right?”

The entire silent void trembled slightly, and the invisible force gathered at Di Man’s fingertips.

“Now, this thing should return to its rightful owner. Thank you for specially bringing it back to me.”

The dim and quiet city trembled, and the invisible force gathered in front of He Ao, but nothing happened.

At this moment, Di Man’s expression changed dramatically, “The Seven-color Flower is not with you?”

He Ao raised his head, gazing at him, his shimmering eyes gradually regaining clarity.

——

Ains City

The desolate streets were empty and silent, with only a few figures peeking through closed windows, tensely looking up at the collapsing reflection of the Inverted City in the sky.

It was also at this moment that a certain writhing sound appeared in the quiet void.

Then, dazzling red light suddenly illuminated the void, intertwining to form a massive net-like structure.

In that instant, a sharp hand suddenly emerged from inside the net structure, tearing it open with force.

A pitiful-looking girl passed through the gap as the net closed, landing on the street.

She glanced back, her mouth curling into a smile, waving, “Goodbye, Berlick.”

Saying that, she leapt, attempting to traverse the void.

At that moment, a figure sitting on the corner gently raised a hand, plucking a blue petal from a flower.

“The hidden injuries Di Man’s manifestation sustained in the battle are now all bursting forth as cumulative damage”

Pop—

With a faint sound, the blue petal was plucked off.

As the pitiful girl leapt, she suddenly paused, her entire body splitting open like a burst watermelon, scattering countless yellow-purple blood.

In an instant, the pitiful girl’s form contracted, transforming into a slender shadow human shape.

The shadow swiftly moved inward, enduring the wounds, rushing toward the city center.

But the brief delay was enough.

Brilliant light spread across the sky at that moment, faintly obscuring the Inverted City’s reflection above.

Boom—

Countless bolts of thunder descended from the sky, striking the shadow and further tearing its body apart.

Then, more bolts of thunder, like silver serpents, surged towards the shadow from all directions, entwining its body.

An elderly man holding a magic wand suddenly appeared before the shadow.

Before the shadow could react, he raised the wand in his hand, piercing the shadow’s body with it.

The shadow’s body stiffened, then instantly shattered, dispersing into flowing light.

At that moment, the elderly man’s brow furrowed slightly in the air.

Meanwhile, on another street corner, the pitiful girl, covered in blood, was struggling to turn the street, lifting her steps and weakly running towards the city center.

“Berlick, you—”

Thud—

A crimson short sword sliced through the void, piercing her neck.

Rushing red light quickly flowed into her body.

At that instant, she widened her eyes, looking at the familiar figure in front of her.

“Paxiu—how could you?!”

Gushing blood, covered in light, flowed from her neck; the cumulative heavy injuries finally erupted completely, guided by the terrifying colorless light, utterly claiming the life of this body.

“Transformations are common, aren’t they?” He Ao slowly approached the girl, leaning close to her ear, whispering, “The assassination plan wasn’t originally arranged by you, was it?”

The girl slightly froze, then her eyes widened a little.

At this moment, He Ao released his hand, and the red blade stuck in the girl’s neck shattered with a crash, causing her body to wobble.

With a soft sound, she fell to the ground.

Simultaneously, her husk began to rapidly decay.

He Ao withdrew his gaze, looking ahead.

The elderly man in a robe had somehow appeared before him, silently gazing at him.

“Care for a cup of coffee?” He Ao pointed to a table nearby.

There were two cups of coffee already prepared, with a slight warmth on the cups.

“Sure.”

The hazy brilliance in the sky quickly dissipated, the elderly man released his hand, and the wand in his hand gradually vanished.

He sat at the table, picking up the prepared coffee cup.

He Ao also appeared before him, picked up the coffee cup, and took a sip.

“This body of yours,” the elderly man looked at He Ao, his gaze sweeping over He Ao’s body, quietly asking, “Is it some kind of ‘offspring’?”

“It’s a method I acquired accidentally, not mature but worth trying,” He Ao took a sip of coffee, softly saying, “This body’s power isn’t strong. If you hadn’t beaten that manifestation to a near-death state, I wouldn’t have been able to execute him.”

“If you hadn’t been here, he might have escaped.” The elderly man slowly shook his head, “I indeed didn’t expect him to have a final escape trick left.”

At that moment, the sky above them suddenly trembled.

The phantom shadow of the Inverted City suspended above the firmament seemed to undergo some mutation; the entire city rapidly became blurry and ethereal, as if enveloped by an indecipherable mist.

Simultaneously, a terrifying and twisted pressure emanated from the blurred city, crossing the boundary between reality and illusion, reaching Ains’s sky.

Lights lit up between Heaven and earth, scattered across the city, seemingly Angel-tier items resisting the invasive pressure from the sky.

“What’s that?”

The elderly man sitting before He Ao also suddenly raised his head, looking towards the sky, his brows knit tightly.

At this moment, He Ao’s expression also changed slightly, as if recalling something.

Finally, he looked up at the sky, letting out a long sigh, “Some changes.”