The fierce snowstorm blew through He Ao’s hair as he lifted his head, his gaze fixed on the card in front of him that was turned away.

The card naturally flipped open, revealing the face of the card.

The card’s illustration depicted a haze of mist under the sunlight, with a huge and vague silhouette seated on a high-backed chair in the center of the mist.

The misty veil obscured his posture and appearance, yet there was a faint sense of his enormous body, along with a hint of a holy aura.

Beneath the mist, there were faintly swaying flowers, squeezed into the frame.

At the edge of this mist, the entire border of the illustration emitted a faint orange-purple glow, intertwining and then disappearing into the depths of the mist, making it impossible to discern its shape.

These were all the elements that a mere glance could capture from this illustration.

But at this moment, He Ao did not immediately divert his gaze from the illustration, instead carefully searching the image.

Soon, he found traces of gray light in the gaps of the mist.

This light was entangled within the mist, almost entirely covered by it, nearly impossible to detect without careful scrutiny.

Yet its reach was so extensive, almost merging with the entire card face, blending into all the pervasive mist.

Once he confirmed the presence of the gray glow, He Ao lifted his head, looking at the card’s name.

[The Departed]

Like [Abnormal], this card had no embellishments or adjectives, just a pure noun.

Abnormality could be considered a phenomenon, especially referring to the existence provoking it.

But what about ’The Departed’?

In the dungeon world’s grammar, this general noun usage typically points to a specific existence.

Compared to Abnormal, the term The Departed covers a much broader scope.

He Ao’s eyes drifted over the illustration content on the card.

The misty haze, and the giant figure sitting on the throne within the mist, presumably referred to the final ’Hawke’.

The orange glow should refer to Eternal Light, and the purple glow refers to the Grim Reaper.

As for that faint gray glow within the mist, it naturally points to a good friend.

Strictly speaking, the good friend was the highest output in this battle, although he only appeared once.

But that one time thoroughly crushed the Grim Reaper’s last concealed strength, allowing He Ao to successfully kill the Skeleton Monarch.

After all, after He Ao used the power left by the War God to cut off the connection between the Netherworld and the New Netherworld, what was isolated behind that wound was not only the Grim Reaper, but also Eternal Light.

Of course, even if Eternal Light’s power remained in the final New Netherworld, he surely would not help He Ao but would leverage the Grim Reaper’s power to cripple He Ao, then try to seize the New Netherworld by any means.

But good friend’s objectives were different, solely targeting the Grim Reaper and had no interest in the Netherworld.

Of course, he also didn’t mind smashing the New Netherworld space in the end, preventing the Grim Reaper’s power from reviving.

And this was possibly the first formal ’collaboration’ between He Ao and his good friend.

Of course, this ’collaboration’s’ backdrop was a setup laid out by the good friend long ago.

However, if considering only Main World time, it might have been not long ago, in Yiluo’s dungeon, in the Kingdom of God’s dungeon.

The final form of Yiluo’s Character Card was Eternal Obsession.

And within that Character Card concerning divine beings still alive, there were only Eternal Light, Witch of Desire, and the good friend.

In the formation of Yiluo’s Character Card, it obviously incorporated the residual power of the Eternal Divine Nation, merging Yiluo and the Eternal Divine Nation into one.

At the time, He Ao had some doubt about the seemingly coincidental process of the card’s formation.

Because under normal circumstances, such a fusion would be hard to achieve; although he had some foresight, he did not have a particular expectation.

Yet this fusion occurred so ’smoothly’.

At the end of the Yino dungeon, the power of Eternal Light had been driven out, leaving only the good friend and the big sister capable of facilitating this fusion.

However, the big sister’s abilities clearly couldn’t promote such a fusion, so it was suspected initially that this fusion might be related to the good friend.

But he couldn’t understand why the good friend would do this.

Until now.

The Grim Reaper Church’s actions of creating a New Netherworld had been ongoing for many years.

Even among the Federation’s high ranks in the dungeon world, many probably knew about this, though not comprehensively, just as peripheral knowledge.

Would the good friend know about this?

Even though the Church of Knowledge did not exhibit overwhelming power in the dungeon world, after summoning so many times, with the good friend arriving so frequently, could he have sensed that space change at the world’s base?

During that time in Rock City’s divine descent of the Grim Reaper, the good friend displayed immense hostility towards the Grim Reaper.

This might have stemmed from the Grim Reaper’s emblem, which used the Wizard’s insignia, or perhaps from other places.

But one thing is undeniable, the good friend does not like, even greatly dislikes, the Grim Reaper.

So, from the good friend’s perspective, if he knew the Grim Reaper was creating a New Netherworld, would he interfere and disrupt this?

He Ao hadn’t considered this until he noticed the state of the Netherworld bore some resemblance to the Kingdom of God.

Until he redeemed the Eternal Obsession Character Card.

Upon actually touching the Kingdom of God, he realized it was essentially another Spirit Realm.

Or rather, Eternal Light was using the Kingdom of God as a prototype to mimic the Netherworld.

At that moment, he thoroughly understood that Eternal Light was eyeing the Netherworld.

Although He Ao didn’t know where this covetousness stemmed from, it was clear that Eternal Light sought similar Netherworld power.

With the Eternal Divine Nation as a similar product, it naturally provided possibilities of invading, even interfering with the New Netherworld.

Of course, that was also why he speculated a possibility.

The good friend helped the fusion of Yiluo and the Eternal Divine Nation to sabotage the Grim Reaper’s plans at that moment.

When that divine descent occurred, the good friend had already drafted the subsequent events.

Actually, thinking this far, He Ao felt a bit creepy, not knowing what more schemes and plans the good friend might have.

But given his circumstances back then, he had no choice but to rely on the good friend’s power.

The only aligned target they shared was taking on the Grim Reaper.

Eternal Light doesn’t care how the Grim Reaper is doing; he only wants the Netherworld or the power of the Netherworld. Once deep collaboration happens, Eternal Light’s betrayal is almost inevitable.

And right now, the Witch of Desire only wants to hunt him.

Perhaps his good friend had thought of these things when planning, or perhaps he didn’t.

But the fact is, this time He Ao had no choice but to use his friend’s power and completed a deep collaboration with him.

His good friend’s goal is to destroy the Grim Reaper, create a New Netherworld, and bring the dungeon world back under control.

He Ao’s goal is even simpler—to disrupt the Grim Reaper’s plan and kill the Skull Giant.

This is not just to complete the task but also to protect himself.

In fact, towards the end of this dungeon, He Ao could actually feel a little of the Grim Reaper’s power eroding his self.

Not only is the Witch of Desire targeting him, but the Grim Reaper is too.

Or, let’s say, it’s ’K’.

It’s just that the good old lady prefers bold moves—straightforwardly putting things in order—while the Grim Reaper likes the sly approach—causing trouble from the shadows.

Once the Grim Reaper’s plan is completed and he replaces K’s faith, this divine being could very well use some form of mysticism to usurp He Ao’s existence.

He Ao doesn’t know what his outcome will be afterward, but it probably won’t be good.

So this time, he must sabotage the Grim Reaper’s plan, even specially constructing a layer of defense against the Grim Reaper.

Of course, all of this is He Ao’s speculation, but his good friend also timely gave He Ao a clear ’attitude’.

When He Ao exchanged for the Suote’s Circular City character card, his good friend was the only divine being who didn’t react at all, but He Ao could clearly feel his good friend’s gaze on it.

This attitude, the Witch of Desire and Eternal Light couldn’t notice, even the Grim Reaper couldn’t perceive it, but He Ao, who had prior information, quickly understood it.

The meaning is very clear—that is, what you want is right.

This also formed the basis for He Ao’s subsequent series of actions and behaviors.

His pressure on the Skull Giant is partly to assimilate the Skull Giant and partly to force the Grim Reaper to reveal his final power.

But the Grim Reaper kept patient until the last moment.

In fact, at that time, He Ao was already at the end of his strength; if he dragged on for a while longer, he wouldn’t be able to hold on and would have to forcibly resolve the Skull Giant, unable to further handle the New Netherworld.

Then the Grim Reaper retaking control of that space would be just a matter of time.

But in the end, perhaps the Grim Reaper really thought He Ao had reached the end of his strength and couldn’t make any more moves, or perhaps the Grim Reaper was still unwilling to give up his Pope.

He made a move as He Ao was about to kill the Skull Giant.

And He Ao, using the previous projection and arranged ritual, and with the help of those undead that died in the space, determined the location of the Grim Reaper’s final power.

Of course, the last blow was delivered by his good friend, completely destroying the remaining power of the Grim Reaper.

After that, He Ao completely controlled the Skeleton Monarch and Shepherd Spirit Emperor Talent Sequences.

Along with ’devouring’ the Skull Giant, He Ao also obtained part of the Skull Giant’s memory.

The reason the Skull Giant was so eager to control the two Talent Sequences is that with these two undead attribute Angel-tier Talent Sequences as the foundation, combined with the Grim Reaper’s coordination, he could construct himself as the core of the New Netherworld.

With this, he would become the ’pillar’ of the Netherworld and leap directly into becoming a God-Overstepping Level existence.

In fact, during his fight with He Ao, this process had already begun.

Even without the Shepherd Spirit Emperor Talent Sequence, relying on the Skeleton Monarch, he could still become the pillar of the Netherworld, but he couldn’t fully support the New Netherworld space and still needed some help from the Grim Reaper.

The final position obtained wouldn’t be as high.

Of course, He Ao doesn’t have these worries because he gathered two Talent Sequences.

He Ao’s problem is, without the Grim Reaper’s help, he can only rely on the Skull Giant’s memory to try to understand the composition structure of the New Netherworld space.

In a way, this is a kind of ’creation’, but a pre-made ’creation’.

The Grim Reaper had already done almost all the preliminary steps; he only needed to do the last bit.

Of course, this pre-made creation also has a very high difficulty level for him.

If creation is equivalent to a university undergraduate graduation design level, pre-made creation is at the level a primary school student could do, then He Ao’s level is at most kindergarten in progress.

However, he has the ’primary school student’ Skull Giant’s ’memory tutorial’, following the Skull Giant’s memory, he imitated and roughly figured out the structure of the whole world and smoothly completed the consolidation of the entire New Netherworld.

The only problem is, his good friend, while eliminating the Grim Reaper’s power, conveniently destroyed the Grim Reaper’s prepared back door and central hub.

This not only avoided the Grim Reaper’s possible control of this space through the backdoor but also caused the entire New Netherworld space to collapse.

Eventually, He Ao plugged the skeleton with the remnants of the Eternal Divine Nation, reconstructed as the core of the New Netherworld.

Of course, this result is to introduce his good friend’s considerable power structure with the remnants of the Eternal Divine Nation into the core of the New Netherworld.

But He Ao, in that extremely short time, wanting to control and stabilize the New Netherworld, could only take this approach.

The only thing He Ao could feel relieved about is that his good friend didn’t show obvious malice in the process and didn’t take out past grievances over what happens now.

Compared to Eternal Light, whose betrayal is commonplace, his good friend, as a ’cooperation’ partner, seems relatively reliable, not settling old scores.

Of course, it’s unlikely that his good friend doesn’t bear grudges.

It’s just that maybe right now He Ao still has value to be used and hasn’t yet exploded.

From the current situation, at least there are two divine beings—the Grim Reaper and the old lady—who have a clear and fundamental hostility towards him.

Furthermore, he has borrowed his good friend’s power more than once or twice; his good friend’s arrangements probably won’t be limited to just this.

Subsequent contradictions and events he faces may become sharper.

Of course, thinking from another angle, his good friend, being such a powerful divine being, is willing to use him, which means he has grown enough to enter the divine beings’ field of view.

Gathering his thoughts, He Ao rubbed his forehead.

Of course, in this process, he also had unexpected gains.

The power of the Martial Arts Angel seems very suited to this world-constructing process, able to quickly interface with different world rules and integrate into these rules, becoming part of the world.

In places where the Grim Reaper’s help was needed, he basically relied on the Martial Arts Angel’s power to grind through.

However, proving Dao as the Martial Arts Angel itself requires ’Establishing Dao’, creating a vague world rule, and thus communicating with the world, having this affinity seems only natural.

But in this regard, can the Martial Arts Angel only establish one ’Dao’?

If the whole world’s ’Dao’ is established by the Martial Arts Angel, what then?

Establishing one Dao can grant a power increase for the Martial Arts Angel, so what if he establishes all the Daos?