The purple lines spread to the factory’s dome, forming a purple sky.

Medala picked up the cigarette again, holding it in her mouth.

At this moment, the sphere in the skinny man’s hand suddenly paused, and he lowered his head, looking at Medala, and said softly, "Your soul is disintegrating, what did you do?"

"Just a little side effect." Medala glanced at him, smiling, "I know you want to use repeated resistance and suppression to obliterate my resistance consciousness, allowing the thing in your hand to control me more deeply, but that’s all. I’m curious how much information you can get by controlling a broken soul, and how similar it can be to the real person."

"Was it the tremor of the Angel Designation earlier?" The skinny man instantly realized, then without hesitation, he quickly pressed the sphere in his hand, aiming to touch Medala’s forehead.

This speed was much faster than the previous slow push, almost instantly reaching Medala’s forehead, touching her skin.

Ultimately, it successfully touched the skin.

However, it wasn’t the woman’s fair cheek, but rather an old hand.

"What?!" The skinny man stared at the hand, slightly stunned.

But before he could react, a powerful force came from the hand, and he inadvertently let the sphere be snatched by the old hand.

"Interesting," He Ao looked at the translucent sphere in his hand, holding it slightly above his head, and gazed at the purple mist inside, "This thing is interesting."

At this instant, the runes across the entire space flickered violently, and the purple mist inside the sphere also flickered fiercely.

Thin lines extended from the mist, like dense tentacles, stretching downward to touch the sphere’s boundary, reaching toward He Ao’s palm.

At that moment, it seemed as if invisible lines from the sky fell from the heavens, wrapping around He Ao’s body.

Like strings descending from the sky, ready to manipulate the soul of a puppet below.

But simultaneously, invisible rays of light spread from He Ao’s palm, followed by faint gray rays extending out, intertwining with the purple rays, cutting off the contact between the purple sphere and He Ao’s palm.

The invisible lines dangling from the sky halted as if encountering a barrier, ceased their movement, and did not extend further.

However, the rays in He Ao’s hand showed no sign of stopping, continuing to wrap forward, covering the transparent sphere.

Dense gray-purple runes lit up on the sphere, causing the entire factory to tremble violently at that moment.

"Ingenious cage structure," He Ao gently rotated the sphere in his hand as if admiring a finely crafted artwork,

"Using a cage to imprison high-level forces, preventing the internal power from spilling out and harming the user. Concurrently, this cage can reverse-expand, synchronizing the external space into the same cage structure, thereby using mystical symbols to allow the higher power inside to manifest in the real world, a delicate structure."

He looked down at the sphere in his hand, with gray-purple rays already covering most of it, forming intricate, complex patterns.

Those patterns breathed, perfectly matching the breathing frequency of the purple mist inside the sphere.

Or perhaps, precisely opposite.

When the purple mist expanded, the gray-purple rays enveloping the sphere began to contract.

"However, this thing surprisingly is not tangible, quite interesting. By engraving runes on the world’s underlying layer, although it projected a concrete object in the real world, essentially, this thing doesn’t have substance."

Accompanying He Ao’s words, the moment the gray-purple rays were about to cover the sphere, the sphere shattered with a bang, transforming into countless scattered rays.

The skinny man hiding behind the sphere had already retreated dozens of meters, raising his hand, a new sphere coagulated again in his grasp.

"Is this your Divine Grace?" He Ao looked at the skinny man, glanced at the sphere in his hand, and asked with a smile.

This so-called Soul Peeping Pearl, essentially is the power descended from a Higher Being.

In most cases, this power directly acts upon the Prayer’s body, helping the Prayer permanently or temporarily enhance their strength.

Or through some method, store these powers, releasing them briefly when needed.

However, the Church of the Grim Reaper seems to use some special rituals and methods to wrap this power, inscribing it into the soul of the skinny man.

Moreover, this Divine Grace power is exceptionally potent, it’s uncertain whether a lot of power descended at once, or multiple Divine Graces were gathered together.

Strictly speaking, this technique is somewhat similar to He Ao’s method of folding and storing excess powerful souls, both utilizing the extensibility of the soul to some extent.

Yet it’s undeniable, this method is truly exquisite, it’s equivalent to directly equipping a person with a powerful high-level prop.

Of course, to achieve this effect, the cooperation with the descending power’s Divine Being is required, and there’s probably some core structure hidden inside. Through this shell, He Ao could roughly understand its implementation principle but couldn’t grasp how it was achieved.

Additionally, due to the existence of this Divine Grace power, the skinny man’s memory and consciousness were somewhat ’protected,’ preventing He Ao from directly reading his memory and consciousness.

"Hawke?" However, the skinny man didn’t answer He Ao’s question, he just raised his head, looking at He Ao, and said with some astonishment.

Clearly, he hadn’t anticipated He Ao’s presence here.

"Hawke?" At this moment, an astonished voice appeared behind He Ao.

It was Medala, who also hadn’t expected He Ao’s presence here.

He Ao turned his head and saw Medala pulling something out from the clothing’s interior, rapidly sending it into her mouth.

"What is that?" He Ao looked at her, asking with some curiosity.

"A soul supplement pill," Medala said without hesitation, "If I don’t take it, I’ll truly die."

"I thought you weren’t afraid of death." He Ao chuckled.

"I wasn’t afraid just now, there wasn’t any struggle left. They could even deceive an angel’s warning network, dealing with someone like me is like killing a chicken," Medala said hurriedly while throwing pills into her mouth, "But now there’s a bit of hope to live, who wants to die while having a chance to live."

"You seem to have an open mind." He Ao laughed.

"I am not open-minded," Medala swallowed the pill, seemingly better, she glanced at He Ao’s side profile, "How did you end up in this factory? When did you come?"

"Been here for a while," He Ao replied directly, "I was just studying the loopholes in this Space Array, trying to get inside."

"How long is a while?" Medala instinctively pursued.

"Hard to say," He Ao shook his head, glanced at her, smiling, "before you said ’I don’t want to betray my friends.’

Upon hearing this, it was as if some terrible premonition became reality, Medala’s eyes widened abruptly.

But soon, she dropped her eyebrows, picked up the cigarette butt still in her hand, took a deep breath, and exhaled some smoke, "Mainly, it’s more reassuring to cooperate with you than with the Church of the Grim Reaper."

She paused and continued to explain, "If he controls me, I’m afraid it will be worse than death; I might as well be dead."

Then she further explained, "As a collaborator, this guy is obviously not as reliable as you, and the things he promised probably won’t be realized."

Then she opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but quickly closed it again, taking another drag on her cigarette, pausing for a moment, "Although very unexpected, anyway, thank you for coming."

"You’re welcome," He Ao smiled and shook his head, turning his gaze to the thin man beside him, "Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to hook this guy so quickly, even though you weren’t willing, but it was a good deed done with bad intentions."

Upon hearing this, Medala opened his mouth and finally chuckled silently, "Old Geezer, sometimes I feel you have a unique charm, not just because you’re handsome."

"Thank you for the compliment," He Ao shook his head, "but maybe some people don’t think so."

He turned his gaze, looked at the thin man, and smiled, "Right, Mr. Des?"

"You shouldn’t be here," the thin man looked at He Ao, his gaze lowered, and said hoarsely.

"Then where do you think I should appear?" He Ao smiled, looking at him, "Dawn City?"

He raised his hand, some flames wrapped around his fingertips, and he smiled at Des, "So I’m very curious, what exactly have you prepared for me in Dawn City? Am I really that important?"

"You’re not important compared to what’s happening at Dawn City," the thin man shook his head, looking at He Ao, he continued calmly, "But if you’re in Dawn City, that’s the best."

"What about at Ains?" He Ao asked with a laugh.

"A bit worse," the thin man looked at He Ao, purple brilliance ignited in his vacant pupils, he laughed, "But I can catch you and send you to Dawn City."

"Is there enough time?" He Ao asked with interest.

"Of course, there’s enough time," the thin man’s mouth curled into a slight smile, "Death is omnipotent."

With that, his body suddenly vanished, almost in an instant disappearing into the dim space.

However, his movement did not stop, a hand reached out from the void, pinched his cheek, pulled him out from the state of vanishing, and ’snap—’ slapped him onto the ground.

Bang—

The solid ground instantly shattered, spreading countless fine cracks.

Surging flames erupted from He Ao’s body in an instant, enveloping He Ao and further enveloping the thin man’s body.

The spreading flames also began to extend along the ground in all directions.

The runes on the factory’s dome at this moment also lit up with brilliant light.

"Well struck." Medala, lying on the ground, saw the thin man slapped on the ground and, neglecting to take medicine, hurriedly raised his hands and clapped enthusiastically.

And at this moment, faint purple brilliance also surged from the thin man’s body, these radiances, like sharp hands, directly tore apart the flames wrapping around the thin man.

He Ao’s hand, clutching the thin man’s cheek, suddenly became empty, as if only grasping a human skin, peeled away the thin man’s facial skin.

He looked down at the flaming skin in his hand, raised his hand, and looked forward.

The thin man’s figure had already pulled back, his face had disappeared, leaving only a sinister skull.

But soon, the flesh on both sides of his cheeks slowly surged and once again wrapped around his skull, reconstructing his face completely.

And at this moment, the surging flames had already ignited the entire hall, only around Medala’s body was a boundary drawn, untouched by the flames.

And that thin man stood within the flames, also not touched by the fire.

He Ao gazed at the thin man’s body, vaguely seeing a faint purple brilliance covering the thin man’s body, blocking his flames.

That was not the thin man’s own power, but the power imprinted within him.

The ethereal divine sense gathered in He Ao’s pupils, unraveling the power patterns of the entire world beneath his gaze.

This layer of Divine Grace imprint in the thin man’s soul, besides possessing great power, also had another benefit.

That was ’position’ maintenance.

Ordinary Divine Grace, after advent, generally transforms into the prayer’s own power, enhancing him.

But in this transformation process, not only is the consumption enormous, but the position of Divine Grace also drops, becoming the user’s level.

A trace of a Divine Being’s power, compared to a sea of mortal power, even though quantitatively comparable, is completely unmatched in position.

After obtaining high positional grade power support, one can be immune to a lot of ordinary damage probes, such as ordinary divine sense, which can hardly discern high positional grade power.

Of course, high positional grade Divine Grace is not so easily obtained, after detaching from the Divine Being, the position always naturally drops, this imprint only delays the drop time.

The Grim Reaper, when adventing power, most likely added more Divine Status.

In this way, the Grim Reaper’s ’cooperation’ with the Church of the Grim Reaper was somewhat extraordinarily high.

It’s like there’s an inherent favor here, you must know when He Ao previously met Elijah, he sacrificed the entire Rock City to exchange for a mere glance from the Grim Reaper.

This Church of the Grim Reaper seems to do nothing at all, yet receives the ’favor’ of the Divine Being.

However, now is not the time to ponder these issues deeply, He Ao watched the changes in the power within the thin man.

Although ordinary divine sense cannot see high positional power, He Ao’s is now no longer ordinary divine sense.

After the divine sense became ethereal, its ability to probe energy circuits seemed to have upgraded, now able to see the refined patterns in originally coarse energy circuits.

Originally unseen high positional powers can now faintly reveal some traces.

But as the observed power’s position improves, the traced patterns suddenly become blurred.

However, compared to the previously almost completely unobservable state, now one can clearly see.

At this moment, He Ao can faintly see the purple hazy brilliance, wrapping around the thin man’s body, breathing gently.

Just like that prior translucent sphere.