The game mission was to "complete the God of Knowledge Sub-body's Descent Ritual according to the original plan," and it never said he could not kill the Evil God Subordinate.
He Ao had not received any system warnings or notifications.
This meant that killing the Evil God Subordinate after completing the ritual was within the rules.
After all, he was a law-abiding good person. Game rules were rules too, and had to be followed.
He then began trying to understand the Talent Sequence 272 he had just obtained. This world seemed to rank superpowers by sequence number, with different abilities holding different rankings.
This Rank 272 ability, called "Super Memory," was very simple. Once activated, it allowed him to remember everything he saw within thirty seconds.
It looked like a support-type ability, but according to Job, it was quite valuable. He did not know what standards they used to determine an ability's value.
But He Ao had no more time to think about that. As the God of Knowledge Sub-body vanished, a vast, furious gaze turned toward this deep cavern.
Selina looked up in terror. She too felt that gaze from the boundless starry sky. Even standing at its edge, she felt endless horror and oppression. In an instant, her mind lost the ability to think, filled with chaotic, disordered knowledge.
"I love studying. Studying makes me happy."
The light vanished from her eyes. Her delicate lips parted slightly, and viscous saliva slid from the corner of her mouth, making her look like a broken robot doll that had been played with beyond repair.
That was the wrath of the God of Knowledge. The great deity was glaring down at this place in blazing anger.
Of course, Selina had only received the aftershock of that power.
The one bearing the overwhelming majority of that fury was He Ao, at the very center of the cavern.
If it had merely been an ordinary Sub-body getting killed, the God of Knowledge could have accepted it. He would not have cared.
But his own priest had summoned his Sub-body, then killed it and stolen his power.
Who could put up with that?
Leaving aside the traitor issue, if everyone did this, wouldn't the God of Knowledge just become a crop waiting to be harvested?
And the power of the summoning ritual had not fully dissipated yet. That made it even more outrageous. He could still send power down, and this guy had turned around and blown up his Sub-body.
Did he not think that was a little excessive?
Violent knowledge crazily battered He Ao's consciousness. Surging power flooded into his body, seeking to destroy both his flesh and soul.
Yet the moment that frenzied power rushed in, it collided with another mass of explosive force. This was the power left inside He Ao by the red beam fired from the beating heart earlier.
The two powers treated He Ao's body as a battlefield. In their savage struggle, neither had the leisure to concern itself with his soul.
He Ao had originally been ready to flee immediately, but he had not expected the two of them to start fighting.
So there was no rush.
He looked toward the Metal Box that had contained the heart. The heart that had once beaten within it had vanished. It seemed it could only trigger its power once.
Then he looked at Selina, who appeared thoroughly broken.
Selina truly seemed on the verge of being ruined. The synthetic skin on her left hand had begun to squirm, and living flesh seemed about to grow from within her mechanical body.
He Ao pulled out a tentacle, wrapped it around Selina, and casually tossed her into a pitch-black passage, flinging her beyond the reach of the God of Knowledge's contamination.
This was an Act of courage.
Even as he casually threw Selina away, He Ao did not stop moving. He activated Super Memory.
In that instant, his mind cleared, as if dust-covered glass had been wiped with a damp cloth. The whole world became crisp and bright.
Countless details flooded into his mind in an instant and were engraved deep into his memory.
He could try memorizing something and see whether he could take it with him. The moment that thought crossed his mind, He Ao chose what to memorize.
A tentacle swiftly curled around an old, yellowed booklet and placed it before He Ao. "Thirty Days to Become a Sword Immortal."
He Ao did not recognize the writing in the book, but he could force himself to memorize the characters as though they were pictures.
More and more chaotic, frenzied knowledge invaded He Ao's body. The God of Knowledge seemed to grow even angrier when he saw that He Ao was continuing to read as if nothing had happened.
With this increase in power, the savage force was swiftly overwhelmed.
Taking advantage of the gap in their struggle, He Ao rapidly flipped through the booklet and memorized all of its contents.
Only five seconds had passed.
It was his first time using Super Memory, so he was still unfamiliar with it and had wasted a great deal of time. Once he became proficient, it should take even less time.
But although he had memorized the entire booklet, he vaguely noticed that it seemed incomplete. Something was missing. Many of the illustrations did not connect properly, and the latter portion seemed like an unfinished webnovel from an author who had lost his drive, lacking its important parts.
The instant he closed the book, the power of the God of Knowledge began trying to erode his soul.
So he decisively tapped the ever-present Return Now option in his field of vision.
The soul within that enormous body abruptly disappeared.
The contamination from the God of Knowledge instantly struck empty air. While it was still stunned, the savage force that had been fighting it seemed to have been driven to a dead end. It suddenly contracted, then exploded with a thunderous boom.
The mountain-like body of flesh abruptly expanded, shattering into countless fragments.
Part of the God of Knowledge's power was also triggered by the blast, exploding one after another. The chain of explosions shook the cavern's sturdy structure, and cracks spread across its walls.
As the cavern's sturdy structure was damaged, the terrifying pressure of the earth above found an opening. Chunks of rock began falling from overhead.
This cavern, which had endured for an unknown number of years, was about to Collapse.
"System installation complete. Mordred Mechanical Group is honored to serve you." "Warning! Left arm connection lost. Contamination intrusion suspected. Please inspect immediately!" "Warning! Left arm connection lost. Contamination intrusion suspected. Please inspect immediately!" "Primary consciousness detected in chaos. Initiating forced stimulation."
After a burst of crackling arcs, Selina regained consciousness from the chaos. The first thing she saw was the red warnings filling her vision.
She looked toward her left arm and saw that the left hand, once covered in synthetic skin, had completely lost control. Tiny, squirming, bright-red flesh buds protruded from beneath the skin.
Without hesitation, she tore off her left hand. Her right palm opened, and a barrel roughly three centimeters in diameter, gleaming with pale blue light, extended from it. A high-energy laser struck the arm wrapped in flesh buds directly, burning it into charcoal.
"Yezuola..."
Then she looked up at the cavern ceiling, which had already begun to crack, and resolutely charged back into the underground cavern that was starting to collapse.
She rushed toward where He Ao had originally stood.
Meanwhile, He Ao, who had returned to the real world, watched the text continuously appearing before his eyes.
Novice mission completed. Novice mission evaluation in progress... Your evaluation: S
Before you continue