The Boy Who Cried Wolf

"What—what happened?"

Thor patted his head, feeling as if he had forgotten a lot of things.

All his clothes were torn, revealing his muscular, manly physique, but he didn't seem to notice. He just kept rambling to himself.

"Oh, right. I remember we were attacked."

While Thor shouted and carried on, Tao Yu tried once again to divine the connection to the Leader.

But the answer pointed toward the chaotic Abyss, and everything was a blur...

"He deliberately let himself be partially infected by the Abyss? No wonder..."

That was why the Leader's arrangements had gone so smoothly without arousing his suspicions.

After all, the Abyss was affecting him constantly, to a greater or lesser degree.

On top of that, the Leader had only been testing his divination. All the arrangements he'd made were "correct" and "real" to begin with, so he'd managed to blend right in.

"But luckily, what he did may have helped me, even if that wasn't his intention..."

Tao Yu had no particular feelings about the Leader himself, but he found the man's method of harnessing the Abyss quite interesting.

He'd already begun learning all sorts of things from Tony, and after absorbing the knowledge in two divine books, Tao Yu's capacity for research and learning had improved tremendously.

The Leader's method was somewhat similar to Tony's, in that it took advantage of the other man's identity as the Luck Stealer. Still, there had to be something worth learning from it.

But that guy was far too perceptive.

Whether it was testing Tao Yu's divination or taking advantage of Thor's altered state, he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do.

The only thing he'd miscalculated was Tao Yu's resistance to the Abyss.

By now, Sif had briefly explained to Thor what had happened to him.

"What?