Chapter 309: Jealousy
Mu Ling watched helplessly as the "host" in front of her turned into a withered corpse, and subconsciously felt something was wrong, immediately staying on high alert.
But her body still couldn't move on its own, still under the remote control of the "savior", even if she was vigilant, she couldn't defend herself.
Suddenly, Mu Ling understood.
So, that's how it is. The truth is, the real "host" of the Mercury Ball has never been the person wearing the mask.
Nor is it the people who have worn the Mercury Mask throughout the generations.
The true mastermind behind the Mercury Ball... is actually the Mercury Mask itself!
She gazed at the Mercury Mask on the corpse, which seemed to be flowing, and the patterns on it became even more exquisite.
As if blood was being poured onto it.
For tens of thousands of years, since the appearance of the Mercury Ball, this beautiful Mercury Mask has never been destroyed or lost, regardless of the deaths of all the Color Assassins or the sudden disappearance of past "hosts," a new "host" always suddenly appears.
This incredibly exquisite Mercury Mask also never undergoes any changes.
It is the one thing that has accompanied the existence of the "Mercury Ball" from the beginning to the end!
In other words, the true... host of the ball!
[So, you've noticed, huh.]
Mu Ling 's body instinctively tensed up, feeling an extreme malice, as if evil thoughts were bursting out from deep within her heart.
That was a voice of a middle-aged man, cold and filled with sarcasm.
Psychic power!
Mu Ling froze for a moment, suddenly realizing that the Mercury Mask had turned into a squirming liquid, incredibly disgusting and twisted, like a pile of dying silver snails struggling!
In the next moment, it actually moved directly onto her face!
In an instant, it crossed several meters of distance, as if teleporting, not giving Mu Ling any time to react at all.
A great fear surged into Mu Ling 's heart.
Distorted and strange ancient incantations kept flooding into her mind.
Her vision was completely covered, and her will began to struggle against an unknown and eerie consciousness.
That voice appeared again.
In the coldness, there was a slightly undisguised evil intention.
[Disappear, insignificant consciousness.]
[End your meaningless life...]
[Your body will become my new puppet.]
[I will rebuild the Mercury Ball.]
Mu Ling felt a tremendous terror and wanted to reach out and tear off the Mercury Mask on her face, but she was shocked to find that she was still under the control of the "savior" and couldn't move on her own.
But instead, she instantly felt at ease.
In that case... nothing will happen to her.
The great savior is definitely protecting her soul.
[Why, aren't you resisting?]
[A rare situation... but also incredibly foolish. Your soul will be wiped away even faster by my psychic power, although resistance would be equally useless.]
At that moment, a strange black dense mist emerged from the girl's body, abruptly severing the connection established by the "Mercury Mask"!
The "Mercury Mask" was immediately sent flying!
Mu Ling 's vision promptly returned to normal, witnessing the "Mercury Mask" being thrown several meters away, rolling on the ground and transforming into a boiling liquid.
Its voice seemed to wail, to rage, to roar!
"What!"
"No mistake, this is the power of the Connector!"
"Why is it you?"
"I understand now, the savior of the Babel Tower, that foolish 'Connector'? Hahaha! I really didn't expect it! So that's how it is!"
"Connector, nice to meet you. I am a special being born in the profound otherworld, also the envy of the 'tower'... Connector, you should have already vanished into nothingness."
Mu Ling listened silently, barely comprehending, but longing for the opposite party to say more.
Connector, is this the true name of the "savior"?
She truly wanted to know everything about the "savior", even if it was useless information. Mu Ling desperately wanted to approach that lofty existence.
Perhaps, this was what they called faith.
Suddenly, the voice within the Mercury Mask fell silent for a moment, as if jealousy realized it was talking to itself and that the "Connector" would not respond.
"Forget it, it's useless to say these things to a mere pawn like you... what I must seize is immensely important. Maybe there's a chance for me to escape the 'apocalypse'... I can't let you block my path."
"I originally planned to use these assassins as cannon fodder to distract and retrieve the Relic from that location, but now it seems I can only speed up the battle."
We must leave Annottales before the Incarnation of Dark Light reacts!
Mu Ling said coldly, "You won't get anything, you can't go anywhere, you will perish here!"
The voice of jealousy was filled with disdain.
It completely did not believe that the girl in front of it could be its opponent.
Even if it acknowledged that in this country, there wouldn't be more than two strong individuals who could defeat the person before it.
But so what?
It was a member of the mysterious and inscrutable "Tower" organization.
For countless tens of thousands of years, the "Tower" organization worshipped the god of strategy and games, dominating and wantonly acting in the multiverse, even destroying numerous civilizations.
What could a mere indigenous strong individual in a material world, even a native girl who hadn't even reached the so-called "half-god territory" of "Apocalypse", possibly amount to?
Not worth mentioning!
Its voice was filled with malice and disdain.
"For over ten thousand years, I have collected such a vast amount of 'malice' generated from 'jealousy', you can't imagine..."
"Pawns of the Babel Tower..."
"You are only pawns, it is impossible for you to defeat me!"
Mu Ling furrowed her brows slightly, so this is the purpose of Mercury Ball's existence.
The Mercury Mask in front of her, or the self-proclaimed "Envy," can absorb power from people's jealousy.
For over ten thousand years, countless people have been tempted by it, hiring assassins... The emotional energy overflowed by those people was absorbed by this powerful owner of psychic power.
Accumulating over ten thousand years, it is indeed awfully terrifying... Mu Ling fell into contemplation, staying alert, feeling that she could take action on her own.
Suddenly, the silent Sword of Demons launched the first attack!
In actuality, it was Bai Yan in another location switching the target in Babel Tower, replacing it with the Sword of Demons.
The Sword of Demons stabbed at the Mercury Mask with incredible speed.
However, Envy reacted.
It surged with a psychic power like an avalanche and clashed against the descending Sword of Demons from the sky.
The terrifying power made the actions of the Sword of Demons resemble a moth flying into a flame, a sparrow colliding with a mountain.
But, Mu Ling surpassed both the demonic sword and Envy!
Because she can transcend time!
Deep Blue World!
Even attacks faster than time, how can they be defended against?
The silver-haired girl arrived in front of the Mercury Mask without hesitation and swung her sword down.
Then, the blade passed through without any sense of obstruction.
Mu Ling was stunned.
What just happened?
The feel was off.
It definitely didn't feel like hitting an object, not even like cutting through a liquid like mercury, but rather, it seemed as if this Mercury Mask didn't exist in reality at all...
Mu Ling recollected the situation when the mask appeared on her face, it also appeared in an instant, without any process of movement, quite baffling.
Could it be that it doesn't exist in the real world?
Mu Ling raised her sword again, but multiple attempts to attack yielded no results.
Five seconds passed, and the Mercury Mask disappeared into thin air.
"It's gone," the girl muttered to herself.
The tsunami-like psychic power also disappeared, vanishing into nothingness, as if it never existed, and the attack from the Sword of Demons naturally missed.
In fact, if they really collided, the demonic sword would probably have suffered certain injuries itself.
Mu Ling remained vigilant, pondering when the enemy would reappear and what kind of attack they would launch.
The opponent is similar to Maryse.
Both possess extremely powerful psychic power, and its psychic power is even stronger than Maryse's, more than double!
Just at this moment, a steady and calm voice appeared in the secret room.
"It possesses a powerful psychic power, enough to manipulate the real world to a certain extent, and can also enter the dimension of the mind to evade physical world attacks and influence."
Mu Ling slightly paused, turned around, and saw a middle-aged man with graying temples, elegant and composed.
He was wearing a black suit and gazed at this side with a shiny black cane supported by his hand.
After seeing Mu Ling , the middle-aged man nodded slightly.
Even if Mu Ling's head was smashed, there was no way to connect the middle-aged gentleman in front of her with the "Savior" and "Profligate ".
Bai Yan introduced himself calmly and calmly: "I am the 'Keeper of Secrets' of Babel Tower... 'Nightsaber ', you should have heard of my existence in the Babel Tower forum."
"Hmm."
Mu Ling nodded gently, still not relaxing her guard. She had no idea of the true and false of the other party.
"Relax, we are not enemies."
Bai Yan shook his head and continued, "This guy's ability is tricky. It can convert between reality and illusion by consuming a huge amount of mental power."
"So, attacks on the physical world are meaningless to it."
As for why Bai Yan knew this... of course, it was because he secretly used the ability of "Connection" to sneak a peek. He was incredibly powerful when it came to gathering information.
After listening to this explanation, Mu Ling asked, "Consuming a huge amount... so how many times can it perform this reality-illusion conversion?"
Bai Yan shook his head and corrected her, "It is not like that. It has accumulated emotional energy for over ten thousand years, almost inexhaustible. It can perform hundreds or thousands of reality-illusion conversions. This is not its weakness."
"However, it seems to have temporarily left."
Yes, during the conversation between the two, the "Jealousy" that had just disappeared did not reappear.
Mu Ling raised her eyebrows, sensing something strange.
After thinking it through, Bai Yan realized where the other party had gone and said, "It should have gone to the Tulip Manor. This guy wants to get something buried underneath the Tulip Manor."
"The Tulip Manor? What is buried down there?" Mu Ling furrowed her brows, feeling that she didn't know a lot of things.
Bai Yan gently shook his head and answered, "I can only say... it is a very tricky thing."
There is an ancient relic buried under the Tulip Manor, which Bai Yan knew from the first playthrough.
But he never knew what other uses that thing had besides attracting Outer Gods.
Because during the first playthrough, this thing was always referred to as a "mission item" and couldn't be used directly.
But at this moment, Bai Yan had a premonition that things would be different in the second playthrough.
——
The Tulip Manor.
The servants were doing their daily work as usual, supervised by the butler Carson , ensuring that there were no mistakes.
No one was aware of the impending crisis.
Suddenly, a strange silver light appeared in the sky.
In an instant, a Mercury Mask flickered and appeared from the light, but for some reason, everyone present seemed to ignore it.
【Before the "Incarnation of Dark Light" discovered us, take the Ruin-level Relic from the underground of the manor, leave this city immediately, and leave this world.】
It completely ignored everyone present and rushed down without hesitation, the Mercury Mask directly sank into the ground and disappeared without a trace.
In fact, its goal was not to confront the Babel Tower at all.
Jealousy was in a hurry and had to quickly take away that Ruin-level Relic, otherwise, if it was stopped by the Incarnation of Dark Light, there would be no possibility of survival.
Compared to the unrestrained Cruelty and Timidity, Jealousy was cautious when it came to the world of Noah. If it died, it would truly be dead, so it naturally had to be extremely careful.
Jealousy did not tell anyone in the "Tower" organization about the trace of a Ruin-level Relic in the world of Noah. It intended to monopolize this excessively powerful force.
Only by doing so would it have a slight chance of avoiding the "end" of the multiverse.
Soil, stones, and material objects had no impact on Jealousy's progress.
As it sank into the ground, it seemed to be in a completely different "layer" from everything underground.
Hundreds of meters underground, kilometers, three thousand seven hundred meters... It finally felt an extremely peculiar aura.
If it wasn't so close, this restrained aura would never have been discovered.
This was also the reason why the Ruin-level Relic that everyone wanted could be hidden for so long in a "monster room" like Annottales.
【Found it!】
【Finally, it's mine!】
The object in front of Jealousy was a fist-sized diamond-shaped black stone that continuously emitted an extremely strange, distorted, and chaotic aura.
It corresponded to the Ruin-level Relic of the "Mysterious Heart", also known as the "Mysterious Core" and the "Relic Creator".
Its corresponding affinity was "casting", and its corresponding time was the Outer God of the sixteenth hour of the day.
Legend has it that the reason why all Relics in the multiverse are born is because of the Mysterious Heart.
It possesses the power to "remake useful things from debris and ruins".
When the souls of the strong are annihilated and famous cities are destroyed, mysterious Relics may appear thousands of years later.
If gods and civilizations fall, powerful Civilization-level Relics may be born from the debris and ruins.
And when a universe is completely destroyed, there is a tiny possibility of a "Ruin-level Relic" corresponding to the Outer Gods being born in the remnants of the world!
The black crystal stone in front of Jealousy is a Ruin-level Relic.
It is named "Thousands of Ruins, Everything Is Used"!
【I wonder how much time is left...】
With it quietly leaving, it should not be noticed by the incarnation of Dark Light.
Without any hesitation, a psychic power directly extended from Jealousy's "Mercury Mask" and carefully wrapped around the black crystal stone, then immediately rushed straight up.
At this moment, a very strange and terrifying scene occurred.
After the black crystal stone moved, everything it touched, including the soil and gravel, began to undergo strange changes.
They quickly transform towards the direction of "Relic"!
The Relics that the world fights for, longs for, and desperately wants are now being mass-produced like garbage by "Thousands of Ruins, making full use of everything"!
This great power causes even jealousy to marvel and be in awe.
[Indeed, they are the only twenty-seven Ruin-level Relics in the multiverse…]
It didn't have much time to marvel either. The strongest in this city, the "Incarnation of Dark Light" as the pinnacle of the mortal beings in Noah's world, is too powerful to be considered a "quasi-god"!
If it senses the existence of this Ruin-level Relic and intervenes to snatch it, things will become tricky.
Jealousy's own power is the weakest in the "Tower," only below Apocalypse.
But even so, it believes that it can overpower most of the Apocalypse below levels with accumulated emotional energy for thousands of years, and even consider itself capable of fighting against the mid-level Apocalypse.
However, it does not think it has any chance of winning against the "Incarnation of Dark Light," nor does it believe it can escape easily.
Finally, jealousy breaks out, emerging from the ground with a black crystal, intending to leave Annottales in such a manner.
[Why did you leave just like that, as a visitor from afar?]
Suddenly, a voice appears in its mind, making jealousy pause.
The next moment, it sees a giant white pillar of light appear in the sky, a spear that will never miss, descending like the White Emperor's Holy Sword, slamming it harshly onto the ground!
"Crack!"
A clearly visible crack appears on the "Mercury Mask."
As a pure user of psychic power, jealousy's true form is quite fragile. It excels more in manipulating the virtual and controlling the mind, rather than engaging in physical combat.
In fact, if it weren't for the passive defense "Mang" possessed by "Apocalypse," the hardness of jealousy's true form would not be much different from an ordinary mask.
Bai Yan, in the form of Profligate, stands nearby, smiling.
"Indeed, it never misses. Even though you momentarily cut out the entity from the real world, you still hit...in the dimension of the mind. You."
[Cursed Babel Tower! Why did you stop me?]
Jealousy is already furious, and the delicate patterns on the Mercury Mask gradually distort, turning into a grimacing face.
"Firstly, because the thing you want to take, I also desire. And secondly, your 'head' is quite valuable...Lastly, it's because you are an unforgivable villain."
After Bai Yan finishes speaking, he smiles slightly. His reasons are quite sufficient, aren't they?
"Torturing evil people brings me great pleasure!"
[I don't have time to tangle with you.]
The next moment, Jealousy has turned into hundreds of identical Mercury Masks, rushing in all directions.
[I want to see how you alone can stop me.]
Just as its main body had just rushed out, it suddenly heard another voice.
"Suddenly being summoned here, how rude... Is the enemy you?"
Jealousy was suddenly startled to see a woman, burning like flames, descending from the sky!
She was like a fiery meteor streaking across the sky!
In an instant, Jealousy was directly forced to the ground by a tremendous force, unable to completely neutralize the attack with her mental power and radiance.
It couldn't understand why another member of the Babel Tower had come, and why it had been hit again.
"The 'Bad Inflammation,' a Civilization-level Relic in my hands, can directly attack the soul... It doesn't matter if you don't exist in the material world."
Scarlet Moon had an emotionless expression as the "Bad Inflammation" she used was even larger than before, unleashed at full power for the first time.
Using full power requires the user to consume a large amount of spiritual energy, but the Scarlet Moon , who possessed "infinite" power, had endless spiritual energy and could never be exhausted!
More cracks appeared on the Mercury Mask!
Suddenly, Jealousy burst out with an immense mental power, no longer caring if it was discovered, bouncing off this blood clan member and rushing several kilometers away in an instant.
[Babel Tower... you can't stop me at all...]
[It belongs to me!]
Just then, Jealousy witnessed something incredible.
Half of the sky had changed.
A colossal platinum sun appeared above Annottales, resembling a scene from a fairy tale world, causing countless people to look up and marvel.
Was this a miracle from the gods?
How beautiful.
Only Jealousy felt an extremely pure and completely opposite, discordant aura to the beautiful scene.
Several kilometers away, Mu Ling sat atop a unicorn and took a deep breath. The beauty with short hair slowly raised her blade.
After arriving at the "Potential Apocalypse," her "Black Prince" potential had also awakened new power.
Mu Ling under the "Black Prince" potential could only unleash one strike.
After the strike, she would temporarily lose her strength and be unable to use any extraordinary power for a short period.
However, this strike could surpass her own level and inflict damage on a stronger enemy!
It was an overwhelmingly powerful strike, almost unbelievable, and even illogical... just like a fairy tale itself.
There were two prerequisites to unleash this strike...
"A pure and just heart" and "belief in love and hope!"
Even if the enemy could materialize themselves from the material world... as long as the one wielding the sword could firmly believe in victory, they would definitely hit the enemy.
Because that is the logic and reason in the world of fairy tales.
She shouted loudly!
"The Sword of the Rainbow!"
A rainbow-colored radiance enveloped Mu Ling and the unicorn from the blade, transforming into a brilliant rainbow that instantly crossed the sky, spanning several kilometers!
The citizens of Annottales were captivated by the beautiful rainbow under the platinum sun, looking up with astonishment and feeling a power filled with hope.
That power was so similar to the "Heart of Radiance"!
Feeling the immense crisis, jealousy wanted to escape. However, time suddenly froze, and even with a thousand means, it couldn't be used in that moment.
In the next moment, a rainbow crossed the sky and heavily struck the Mercury Mask!
This mask, which had existed for who knows how many years, had manipulated people's hearts and caused countless tragedies. Finally, it couldn't bear the weight and shattered.
