Chapter 356: He Ascended to Alaya, Deceiving Reality and Illusion!
A girl dressed like a magician didn't notice the person darting out from the side and collided with them.
"S-sorry~"
She instinctively apologized first, as Le Fay felt she had been distracted while walking, causing her to not see clearly and bump into the other person.
However, her apology received no response from the other party, who completely ignored her and walked away.
"It seems they truly have no awareness of our presence,"
The one who said this was Serafall.
"I just hope we're not in a virtual world again~"
This voice, tinged with unease, came from Irina.
Her gaze was fixed on a bizarre scene ahead: a god suddenly erupted in violence, swinging the weapon in their hand at another god nearby.
The god who was struck collapsed to the ground, motionless as if dead.
Immediately after, the god who had struck them picked up a nearby stone and uttered these strange words: [Another head successfully taken.]
It seemed as though they were treating the stone as the severed head of the slain god?
In their perception, had they truly succeeded in beheading the other?
But in the eyes of Irina and the others, they hadn't even hit the mark, right?
They completely missed, didn't they?
The eerie part was that the god who wasn't struck also fell as if they had truly been hit—were they acting along with a lunatic's performance?
Could the acting be any faker?
But Irina knew this wasn't an act. In the perceptions of those two gods, one genuinely believed they had decapitated the other, while the other was convinced their head had been severed, thus lying motionless like a corpse.
The cause of this was due to that person's influence.
Just as before, when he had deceived Buddha by luring him into a virtual world,
This time, he had overlapped the virtual world with reality, making it even harder to distinguish between the two.
Thus, the world perceived by people now was akin to viewing reality through AR glasses—a fusion of virtual information and the real world.
Only in this way could Primordial God Gaia be deceived, especially since she had previously been tricked into a virtual world.
Without blending reality in this manner, deception would be far more difficult.
As for the others, since they were not originally from this world and were less affected by its Akashic Records, he assigned them a mission: to find Gaia.
Now, only they remained completely unaffected, moving as freely as invisible beings.
Thus, they became his eyes, tasked with locating Gaia and releasing a virus into her system.
Because the current Gaia was like a hacker who had uploaded her consciousness into the network, infiltrating the Akashic Records.
To root her out and eliminate her, he couldn't directly purge her through the network—Gaia would defend against it.
So, they needed to locate Gaia's physical body—her server—directly.
It was like inserting a USB drive into her mainframe to implant the virus.
Of course, this mission was perilous, as Gaia might very well detect their presence and eliminate them.
Suddenly, the surroundings began to warp strangely.
For instance, the architectural style before them, originally reminiscent of ancient Eastern designs, abruptly shifted to Western medieval structures.
Or the two styles overlapped—half Eastern, half Western.
Or they merged into a bizarre, hybrid form.
These changes occurred because Gaia and he were vying for control of the main Akashic System.
Now that Gaia had infiltrated the main system and was attempting to alter the Akashic Records, he had to maintain the overlay of virtual and real—preventing Gaia from uncovering the truth—while desperately competing with her for control of the main system and correcting the altered records.
If he hadn't gained the support of all humanity, ascending to become the embodiment of humanity's collective will—Alaya—he truly wouldn't have been able to resist.
But the version of him in that ascended state also sent chills down their spines.
It felt as though, in that state, he would do anything to ensure humanity's survival.
In the blink of an eye, the group finally arrived before a colossal temple...
"This is just way too big, isn't it?"
"It feels like we've wandered into a land of giants."
Irina and Le Fay clicked their tongues in awe.
The others also gazed solemnly at the temple's entrance, which seemed to lead into an abyss.
No, something even more terrifying than an abyss.
"Rossweisse and I will go in. The rest of you, wait outside."
Serafall declared.
"No!"
"I refuse too!"
Irina and Le Fay objected, while the otherworldly shrine maiden remained silent, her eyes conveying the same resolve.
So, Serafall said nothing more.
Together, they stepped inside.
And the moment they crossed the threshold, the sight that greeted them sent shivers down their spines.
The exterior appeared to be a temple, a structure built of stone, yet the interior resembled something organic.
It felt as though they had stepped into the body of some bizarre creature, sending chills down their spines.
Finally, they came to a halt before a colossal figure veiled in a headscarf.
It was a female—a terrifyingly distorted giantess, with multiple flesh-formed tubes extending from her body into a strange apparatus. Upon closer inspection, her form bore abnormal features reminiscent of the Primordial Mother Goddess described in various mythologies.
This being was likely the Primordial God, Gaia!
Suppressing her overwhelming fear, Serafall desperately fought to keep her body from trembling or weakening.
She drew out the object he had given her—a sword that had once appeared during the Final Battle Between Humanity and the Gods. It was the very blade he had wielded when he manifested as the Old Man of the Mountain.
"Hmm?"
A pair of hands joined hers in gripping the hilt.
"Together," Rossweisse said.
Exchanging a glance, they shared a faint smile, took a deep breath, and—
"Ha!" *2
With a synchronized shout, they charged forward and plunged the sword in!!!
In that instant, the monster seemed to open its eyes—then they knew nothing more.