life copy game

Chapter 1680 A Helping Hand from Fate (Long Chapter, Requesting Monthly Tickets)
"Newport sent a message saying they have the situation under control. Their anomaly is a twisted shopping mall where everyone in the city has become a commodity. However, they have successfully evaded capture by the anomaly cult and obtained 'customer' status, acquiring the keys to the mall's central offices..."

"News from Zorndale in the northwest says that a huge ski resort has appeared in their city, with every street covered in snow and ice. Twisted monsters chase them through the snow, forcing them to ski endlessly. However, by chance, they found the lair of the Aberrant Cult and, with the help of the monsters, destroyed the cult's stronghold..."

"A message from Ant City says that the city's space has been torn open, turning into a series of mole burrows from which mole monsters will emerge. If the monsters aren't driven back, they will be torn apart and eaten. Their captain is injured and unconscious, but while transporting him to treatment, they encountered the hideout of an anomalous cult and successfully infiltrated it..."

"Dellwood said that all sorts of doors have appeared in the city, and garbage is being thrown out of them randomly. The entire city is now filled with garbage. They have also been attacked by the abnormal cultists and have suffered heavy losses. They are requesting support... This requires our support... Wait, their latest message has arrived."

"Um, they said that the Anomalous Cult accidentally bumped into an open junk door and got covered in mechanical debris that popped out. One of their new recruits found quite a few... high-energy batteries? Is that junk too? He set a trap and severely damaged the Anomalous Cult... They're now looking for the Anomalous Cult's hidden core items..."

The young man looked up at Denon beside him, "...They don't seem to need any support now."

The entire hall was eerily silent.

“The next city,” Denon said hoarsely.

"The Ochre Anomaly is a massive sandbox game where all the buildings in the city have been transformed into sandbox structures that can be freely dismantled and rebuilt. This game features monsters that spawn at fixed times, and the Anomaly Cult has mastered the method to control these monsters and is hunting them down everywhere."

"However, many of the young people among them enjoy playing sand table games, so they are not in danger at the moment. But there seems to be an outpost of an unusual cult near where they are currently fleeing. It's quite suspicious; it seems to be a core stronghold with weak defenses. They have already devised a way to lure the guards away..."

“So,” Denon said hoarsely, “you mean, they ran around aimlessly, and while being chased, they found the core stronghold of the Aberrant Cult, and that stronghold just happened to be poorly guarded?”

Upon hearing the question, the young man nodded. "Yes, but that's not what I said; it was in the message they sent."

Denon leaned over, looking at the text displayed on the screen, his brows furrowed deeply. "Do you think it's possible that our minds have also been affected? That this thing isn't actually connected to anyone, and what we just learned was all an illusion?"

“It’s not impossible,” the young man chuckled awkwardly, glancing at the two idol girls being held captive not far away. “But didn’t we just happen to run into a witch cult?”

Hearing this, Denon paused slightly, turned his gaze towards the door, and said, "Now that you mention it, it does seem to be true..."

He rubbed his temples. "But this is going too smoothly, it's like fate is on our side..."

-

Primordial Wilderness
The magnificent stone pillars rise from the earth and reach straight to the sky.

He Ao got up, trying to get away from the stone pillar's encirclement, but before he could move, the pillar had already risen completely, trapping him in a huge cage.

He raised his head, his gaze passing through the gaps between the stone pillars, looking towards Estella in the distance.

Immediately afterwards, he leaped into the air, attempting to squeeze through the crevice.

A dazzling green light instantly spread from the stone pillar, enveloping his body and swiftly cutting through his flesh like thin threads.

Blood, glowing with a purplish-green light, gushed out instantly, covering his body.

A powerful force pulled He Ao's body, throwing him inwards and back between the stone pillars.

“Stop struggling,” Vestan said, looking down at Heo with a sneer. “Even ordinary angels can’t escape this prison.”

Estella, who was not far away, turned her gaze to Heo, then quickly looked away and looked back at the sky.

The buildings, suspended in the sky, were now covered in a hazy mist, with a faint green glow outlining their edges like twinkling lights.

Above these inverted buildings, higher in the thick fog, in the sky above this 'field,' some terrifying entity is slowly writhing.

It was so enormous that even the slightest movement caused a huge tremor throughout the entire sky, as if its body were even wider than the sky itself.

And under the tremors in the sky, the thick fog covering the firmament also began to vibrate in a strange way.

Immediately afterwards, the upside-down buildings shrouded in mist also began to 'resonate' at an eerie frequency.

Each of their buildings operates on a different frequency, yet they are so harmonious, like a magnificent symphony played in a grand concert hall, with dazzling green light shimmering around their bodies.

Amidst this complex and overlapping tremor, faint green rays of light began to emerge from the mist and from between these buildings.

They swirl around the buildings, indistinctly, and against these buildings as a base, countless more 'buildings' begin to emerge.

"The third layer has also descended, and the anomaly is about to awaken." Vestann looked up at the scene in the sky, a smile spreading across his face as he spoke in a hoarse voice.

He Ao also looked up at the scene in the sky. He didn't recognize the outlines around the other buildings, but he was very familiar with the outlines around the orphanage.

That was the street near the orphanage, and the emerging outline was rapidly spreading outwards, from the street near the orphanage to more distant blocks.

It seems that this is what Vestain calls the 'third layer,' which, based on the anomalies existing in each city, gradually pulls the entire city's 'outline' into this primordial wilderness.

But what is the purpose of doing this?

He Ao glanced at Vestan and asked directly, "You want to drag the entire Northeast region into the Primordial Wilderness? What does this have to do with releasing anomalies?"

“Heh, with your knowledge of mysticism, you naturally can’t understand these things,” Vestann chuckled. “All you need to know is that when the third layer fully descends, that’s when the anomaly is released.”

He Ao didn't react to his mockery. He just frowned and stared at the green grass and the mist in the sky. "The 'anomaly' phenomenon in the northeastern region of the Federation is actually part of the anomaly seal? When you first created the seal, you cleverly used the power of the anomaly to seal the anomaly itself?"

The moment he finished speaking, Vestain scoffed, "You're quite good at guessing."

Estella, who was not far away, turned around again and glanced at Heo.

“Looks like I guessed right,” He Ao laughed, narrowing his eyes. “Since these anomalies are part of the seal itself, then is this Primordial Wilderness we are in now, as the earliest anomaly, the original ‘power channel’ of the entire seal?”

His gaze swept across the boundless green plains. "So, the anomalous power leaked out through here. This is the closest place to the anomalous entity in the entire northeastern region of the Federation, and also the weakest point of the entire seal? Is that why you started here, trying every means to get into this place?"

This time, Vestain glanced at him but said nothing.

“Looks like I guessed right again,” Heo said with a smile, gripping the Spear of Vestara in his hand. “Since the start of your plan, this wilderness has not shown any signs of tearing or impact. If your plan is to violently destroy the seal, this weak point should be the first place to be affected.”

He looked up at Vestann. "So, your plan isn't to violently break the seal? Judging from the anomalies you've created in all twenty-six cities, your plan is to use these anomalies, to utilize some inherent characteristic of the seal itself, to 'release' the sealed anomaly?"

He paused slightly and asked with a smile, "You actually have no way to break the seal? You can only rely on the characteristics of the seal itself to release the abnormal entity sealed inside? When you created the seal, did you borrow some kind of uncontrollable power? So much so that you can't even break the seal you created?"

"Only those in higher positions can suppress others in higher positions. Let me think about it."

He smirked. "It's the power of the God of Order, isn't it? The power that remained on the earth during the Great Storm, during the War of the Gods?"

He had this suspicion long ago, because there was obvious power of the God of Order above the Northern Gate, but Estella and the others did not seem to be followers of Order.

The power of the god of order in their northeastern region is most likely not a gift from the gods, but rather something they devised to 'utilize'.

The only event that He Ao could think of where the God of Order might use divine power on a large scale in the dungeon world was that 'Great Storm,' the divine war in which the God of Order and several other gods besieged the God of War, leading to the God of War's fall.

Of course, this is just speculation, and he cannot be certain.

Upon hearing his words, Vestain's expression visibly changed. He glanced down at He Ao and sneered, "I told you not to make wild guesses. Don't you know that knowing secret knowledge doesn't give you an advantage; it often means you'll bring trouble upon yourself?"

"Looks like my guess was right?" He Ao looked at him with a smile.

Vestain shut his mouth and didn't say anything more.

Heo turned his gaze to Estella, who was not far away.

Estella did not react in any way.

“Let’s get back to what you’ve been doing,” Heo said, turning his gaze back to the massive stone pillar prison and gazing up at the sky. “These anomalies are something like anchor points.”

"The anchor point of the first layer is the Future Building. You have used some method to drive it into the Primordial Wilderness, which is equivalent to opening up a passage to the area closest to the abnormal entity."

"Then you used the immediate family members of the deceased in the Future Building as sacrifices to create different anomalies in the other twenty-five cities. Then, using the Future Building as an anchor point, you also brought in the anomalies in these twenty-five cities. This is what you call the 'second layer' structure."

"And the anomalies in these twenty-five cities, coupled with the Future Building, are strongly connected to their respective cities."
"Therefore, when these twenty-six anomalies are dragged into the Primordial Wilderness, you can use this to forcibly drag all twenty-six cities in the entire Northeast region into the Primordial Wilderness in some kind of mystical way."

He raised his head, and this time, he didn't look at Vestann, but at Estella. "So, what is your purpose? To sacrifice the lives of tens of millions of people in these twenty-six cities to release the anomalous entity that you personally sealed away back then?"

“You’ve got one thing wrong,” Estella’s cool yet slightly hoarse voice finally rang out this time. “It wasn’t me who created the Future Tower anomaly and caused it to sink into the Primordial Wilderness. Rather, it was the anomaly’s own power that leaked out and impacted the surface world. The Future Tower just happened to be at the point of that leak.”

"What a coincidence?" He Ao raised an eyebrow. "It just so happens to be in the location you arranged—a building where people from 26 cities live at the same time?"

Estella said calmly, "This is indeed a leak."

"But you also have the ability to redirect this leaked power to a 'safe' and deserted location, right?" He Ao lowered his gaze slightly. "Although there aren't many abandoned buildings in Willens, they're not uncommon. You even had time to evacuate the people living inside."

He took a slight breath. "But you don't want to do that. You just want to use this leak to create an anomaly that can be nailed into the Primordial Wilderness to help you open a passage, becoming the first step in your plan to release the anomaly itself. So you spent a long time choosing the Future Building, and hit it off with the Note Intelligence, creating that collapse incident back then."

This time, Estella paused slightly, then said in a hoarse voice, "That was a necessary sacrifice."

“Is that so?” Heo lowered his head and gripped the Spear of Vistara in his hand.

“Little guy,” Vestan scoffed, “the abnormal release is an inevitable fact. There’s no point in you worrying about these things now.”

"Is that so?" He Ao raised his head and looked up at the sky.

The city outlines that appeared in the sky flickered for a moment.