Chapter 2800 Facing the Goddess Head-On <TOC>
Translator: SumTLMan
Aedannis had also seen that Angel had something to rely on and thus was fearless. However, she did not think it was her own harsh attitude that had led to Angel’s backlash, but instead became even more certain in her heart that there must be something fishy about Angel, and that this fishy matter might well be the reason for Ouro’s unusual attitude.
Either find out the reason and weigh the pros and cons, or…… eliminate him at the source.
Unstable factors were what Aedannis least wanted to see. Especially since this matter also had an impact on Ouro!
Aedannis：「You dare be so presumptuous because he told you that here, I cannot make a move, right?」
The 『he』 in Aedannis’ words referred to the Sovereign of Wisdom.
Aedannis indeed could not descend at this time, because the Sovereign of Wisdom possessed absolute control over his own great hall, and the Sovereign of Wisdom and Aedannis were not completely of one mind. If her true body descended, although the Sovereign of Wisdom would not kill her, he might forcibly strip away some authorities. For example, the magic formation authority that she had obtained only with great difficulty.
This was not something Aedannis was willing to see.
So, she would not descend now, much less make a move against Angel.
「Even if you have his protection, he can only protect you for a time, if you still intend to move forward, what awaits you will be an eternal nightmare.」
Angel glanced at the Sovereign of Wisdom, who was watching the show from the side, and only then said unhurriedly：「Dealing with nightmares, huh, that is what I am good at.」
Aedannis ignored Angel’s joking words, stared at him darkly and said：「It seems you have no intention of leaving, very good.」
「I will ask you one last question, what is the relationship between Mirror Lady and you?」
Angel raised his brows：「What, you know Mirror Lady too? She and I are on very good terms.」
Looking at Angel’s frivolous attitude, Aedannis did not believe what he said at all：「Since Mirror Lady and you are on such good terms, then I will try and see, if I banish you to the Mirror Realm, whether she will appear.」
After saying that, Aedannis did not say anything more, and directly vanished from the bronze mirror.
……
Within the mirror passage filled with dreamlike light, Aedannis’ figure flickered continuously, and with each flicker, she crossed countless mirror surfaces.
Very quickly, Aedannis arrived in a space dominated by reflections of mountains and seas. In this mirror space, aside from the illusory reflections of mountains and seas, there were only spiderweb-like mirror cracks filling the sky.
These cracks meant that this was a space on the verge of shattering.
Cycles of birth and destruction were too normal in the Mirror Realm, and Aedannis did not care about this at all. All of her attention was focused on a pitch-black abyss within the reflections of mountains and seas.
Aedannis’ figure landed lightly at the edge of the abyss.
The moment she landed, black mist churned within the abyss. A few seconds later, a figure wrapped in black mist slowly rose from the center of the abyss.
After the figure left the abyss, although the black mist thinned somewhat, it was still very difficult to peep into the true visage inside. One could only vaguely see that the figure inside ought to be female, and that her whole body faintly emitted a crystal-like luster.
「Younus, are you hurt? What happened?」When facing Younus, Aedannis’ tone was obviously much gentler. Although she was very puzzled as to why Younus had not held Angel and the others back, the first thing she cared about was still whether Younus had been injured.
The figure in the black mist was also Younus within the Mirror Realm：「Your Highness, rest assured, I am not injured…… it is just that, I also do not know what happened.」
「You do not know what happened? Explain the specific situation carefully.」Aedannis asked.
Younus thought for a moment, then recounted in detail what had happened earlier.
Just as Angel and the others had judged, Younus had actually discovered their traces long ago. It was only that Younus had not launched a pursuit against them, but had instead patiently waited in ambush at the fork in the road. In any case, they would come over eventually.
However, just as Angel and the others arrived at the edge of the fork, and Younus was preparing to open the Abyssal Hollow, Younus suddenly discovered that she could no longer move.
Her true body in the Mirror Realm was not affected, but the Abyssal Hollow outside the Mirror Realm could not unfold at all, as though it had been shackled by something.
Younus had also thought about going out with her true body to meet them in battle, but the other side was clearly prepared. After confirming that Younus could not open the Abyssal Hollow, they did not linger in battle at all, and piled on every acceleration and amplification effect they had. Even if Younus’ true body had forcefully descended, it would still have been difficult to catch up.
In the end, Younus could only watch helplessly as Angel and the others, without much effort, stepped across the fork in the road and sped toward the Sovereign of Wisdom’s great hall.
When Younus finished recounting the main story, Aedannis still had not determined where the problem lay, until Younus mentioned one detail.
「The red-haired wizard threw a lot of plates onto the ground. I do not know what they were either. Just now, I exhausted myself to open just a tiny bit of the Abyssal Hollow, and brought one in from the material world.」After Younus finished speaking, she began stirring the abyss, and an object slowly rose up out of the hole.
「This space is already close to shattering completely. If you continue bringing things from the material world in, the speed at which it shatters will become even faster.」Aedannis said with a frown.
Younus：「It does not matter. In any case, sooner or later it was going to shatter. Moreover, Second Treasure had already just been born earlier in order to find a new space, and is very stable, there will not be any problem.」
When Younus spoke of Second Treasure, she did not conceal that intense motherly love in the slightest. From this tone alone, one could actually tell that this Younus was precisely Motherly Heart Younus.
Originally, Aedannis had wanted to ask whether it was One-Eyed Big Treasure and One-Eyed Second Treasure that had helped Angel, which was why they had successfully broken through, but seeing Younus looking so proud of her own children, Aedannis still swallowed back the words that had reached her lips.
「This is it, the one that red-haired wizard threw, there are many of them at the fork.」Younus presented the round disc before Aedannis.
As Aedannis looked at it, she asked：「There are two red-haired wizards, which one are you talking about?」
Younus：「This one.」
The black mist of the abyss rolled, and a mirror slowly rose. Inside the mirror was a red-haired, golden-eyed human.
Aedannis frowned：「Why is it him again?」
Without question, this human was Angel. Originally, Aedannis did not think that a few round discs could suppress Younus, but when she saw Angel, alarm bells rang wildly in her heart. She took the round disc from Younus’ hand and examined it carefully.
「An external formation disc?」As a great master in the field of magic formations, Aedannis saw the clue after looking only at the few marks carved onto the formation disc by the inscription pen.
Aedannis pondered for a moment, then looked at Younus：「Project the current state of the fork outside onto the mirror surface.」
Younus did not dare delay, and immediately connected to the burrow outside, projecting the situation outside into this place.
Angel on the mirror surface slowly disappeared, while the scene of the fork outside gradually emerged.
Younus very thoughtfully included the position of every formation disc on the fork within the image. Clearly, Younus had also guessed that perhaps these formation discs really were the main reason for her failure.
Aedannis carefully looked at the image on the mirror surface, then compared it with the formation disc in her hand, and completely understood Angel’s method.
「Through the external formation discs, he changed the direction of energy flow, and then redirected all of the energy flow within one region to gather at one point, this is his method.」Aedannis said softly.
「Ah?」Younus did not understand.
Aedannis sighed inwardly. If these words had been said to Big Treasure or Second Treasure, she certainly would not have needed to explain again. As for Younus…… although her strength was great, and her body could gradually materialize, her way of thinking had still not changed. She remained like the other creatures inside the mirror, hollow, and disdainful of everything in the material world.
However, Younus was after all her subordinate, so Aedannis still patiently explained：「You can understand it as this：he manipulated part of the magic formation’s authority, so that the moment you manifested at the fork in the road, what had been a confrontation between the two of you became a confrontation between you and the magic formation.」
Younus said in partial understanding：「Then if I had not held my ground at the fork in the road at that time, would I have been able to avoid confronting the magic formation?」
Aedannis shook her head：「Since he was able to discover the direction of the magic formation’s energy flow at the fork in the road so quickly, and in the brief span of one second throw out the formation discs and block your appearance. This means that, as long as you were in the underground sewers, no matter where you went, he could use the same method to restrain you.」
「So that is how it is, he was able to manipulate the magic formation, no wonder Big Treasure and Second Treasure also did not stop him.」Younus nodded：「In that case, it is only normal that I lost……」
Aedannis did not believe at all that Big Treasure and Second Treasure had truly lost to Angel. Big Treasure and Second Treasure were not creatures that rampaged merely by relying on their devouring ability. With their special talents, they would not necessarily be constrained by Angel’s method of manipulating the magic formation.
Most likely, they had not seriously exerted themselves at all. As for whether they had even seen Angel and the others, that too was a question mark. After all, the several brats of the One-Eyed family had all been brainwashed by the Sovereign of Wisdom.
Aedannis was not in a good position to expose it either. Excessive doting had made Motherly Heart Younus trust the two children incomparably. If she exposed it, and if an accident occurred, then with Younus’ innate talent for time body division, if Motherly Heart split once more and time bodies such as Stern Mother Heart or Stepmother Heart appeared, that would amount to directly dismantling the upper limit of Younus’ true body’s abilities. Moreover, Aedannis would certainly also be resented by Big Treasure and Second Treasure, so the best way was still to maintain the current balance of mutual restraint.
Aedannis nodded vaguely and let this topic pass. Then, after comforting Younus a little and telling her not to be too dejected, she signaled for Younus to return first and await orders.
After Younus left, Aedannis’ expression instantly became grave.
She again looked at the formation disc in her hand. The beautiful and smooth rune made Aedannis vaguely feel a slight sense of familiarity.
Aedannis lightly raised her hand, and an inscription pen appeared in it. She found the first stroke of the rune on the formation disc, closed her eyes, and slowly replicated it once with the inscription pen.
When she opened her eyes again and looked at the formation disc…… the lines that the inscription pen had passed through were seventy percent identical to the rune Angel had engraved. Among the identical portions, even the angles had not changed.
Although magic formations had always demanded rigorous inscription, when inscription runes, the placement of positions could still be altered according to one’s own habits.
But when Aedannis and Angel engraved runes, their inscription direction and habits were unexpectedly almost the same!
This was also the part that had made Aedannis feel it unbelievable after she had noticed it earlier.
「Could it be her?」Aedannis looked at the staff’s external formation disc and muttered in a low voice.
There was only one possibility she could think of.
Angel was connected to…… Margaret.
And although Aedannis had never truly met Margaret, she had obtained from Ouro the magic formation inheritance that Margaret had left behind.
Precisely because it was passed down through the same lineage, Aedannis’ habits when inscription were almost exactly the same as Margaret’s.
Angel could actually also achieve a few traces of Margaret’s habits.
Did that mean Angel had obtained Margaret’s inheritance? Perhaps the inheritance had some deviation, so although when he engraved runes it was not exactly identical, it was at least seventy percent, eighty percent similar?
If it truly was as she had guessed, Aedannis seemed to understand somewhat why Ouro had shown abnormal behavior when he saw Angel.
Margaret was Augustine’s partner, while Ouro’s birth had been personally created by Augustine. If Augustine was his 「father」, then Margaret was equivalent to his 「mother」. Although this analogy is not quite right, what is beyond question is that, to Ouro, if Margaret’s student came to his door, he would absolutely not dare shut that person out.
If this really was the reason, even Aedannis would feel somewhat conflicted. After all, she also counted as Margaret’s student. Looking at it this way, Angel might even come from the same school as her.
However, this did not make Aedannis give up attacking Angel.
Aedannis had never met Margaret face to face, and she did not have too strong a sense of identification with the identity of 「Margaret’s student」.
Compared with a baseless student of Margaret, what Aedannis valued more now were Ouro, and the normal operation of the Ruin Site.
She would not allow a variable to come to the Ruin Site.
Unless Margaret and Augustine came in person, otherwise, she would absolutely not change her stance.
Aedannis’ gaze became firm once more. Moreover, after 「seeing through」 the reason Ouro valued Angel, Aedannis would be even calmer when dealing with this group today.
No matter what, Angel at most was only Margaret’s disciple, and had no direct connection with Ouro. The reason Ouro valued him lay more in his 「respect」 for Margaret.
Therefore, Aedannis believed that as long as Angel completely disappeared, Ouro would not care too much either.
Just as over these past years, she had made Noah’s descendants disappear one by one.
When she dealt with Augustine’s descendants, Ouro had never said anything about her, much less when this was only a student of Margaret’s?
Thinking of this, Aedannis no longer hesitated, and disappeared from this space of mountain-and-sea reflections.
Angel had passed Younus’ checkpoint, so he was already not far from the Ruin Site. It would not be long before Angel and the others left the great hall, so she had to make a response.
She herself temporarily could not go deal with Angel, because she had to return to the Ruin Site and hold Ouro back.
However, this did not mean that Angel and the others would be able to proceed with smooth sailing.
After leaving the great hall, what they would face would be a monster from another world. And this monster, even Aedannis had to admit, possessed strength so great that it had reached a terrifying level.
Even Younus’ devouring had no effect on it whatsoever.
Therefore, for Angel to want to use the means he had used against Younus to deal with it, was almost impossible!