The blazing brilliance flashed briefly before slowly fading away.
The entire ritual resembled a skateboard coasting to a stop, having lost its momentum, gradually coming to a halt.
"Jason? Anlin?"
Job realized something was amiss; the ritual had been interrupted. He picked up his gun and vigilantly scanned the area in front of him.
Just now, he thought he had heard the sound of the metal wires of the confinement device snapping—what terrifying willpower that must have taken!
The pain from the confinement device escalated geometrically with greater movements. Job had once experienced this sensation. The pain inflicted by the device had several levels, and he had passed out from level four. To snap the confinement device outright would mean enduring the highest level of pain: level thirteen.
This was almost impossible, unless the confinement device was broken!
As the dim light disappeared, Job could barely make out that his six team members were still standing in front, seemingly unharmed.
However, upon seeing this scene, he did not hesitate and immediately rushed towards Selena.
Had he been discovered? Unfortunately, the disguise wasn't good enough. If these were living people, they would be holding guns on guard and shouting to each other to confirm survival, not just standing there dumbly.
He Ao sighed inwardly. Right now, his body was a bit stiff and trembling. The metal wire that had pierced his body was indeed somewhat painful, but still within his threshold of endurance.
Meanwhile, Job had already grabbed Selena's hand, about to unlock her electronic shackles.
He was well aware that at this moment, only Selena could save him, even if it meant going back to prison.
But as soon as he touched the electronic shackles, his entire body froze in place.
Selena looked at the man in front of her who had just been swaggering, as a huge and slimy tentacle directly pierced through his body. This horrifying flesh weapon entered from between the gaps of his ribs at the back, accurately piercing Job's heart and emerging from his chest.
Bright red blood splattered out, staining Selena's fair skin and golden hair.
The tentacle then lifted slightly, hanging Job's body in the air like cured meat. Job's brain was still conscious, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to say something, but only the blood that had entered his windpipe from his chest cavity continued to gush from his mouth.
By then, the brilliance had dissipated completely, and Selena stepped back twice, turning her head to look where the six team members had been standing.
They were not 'alive'; they were merely 'standing'.
Their bodies had been impaled by sharp tentacles, which propped them up like pillars to make them appear like 'living people'.
As Selena looked at them, the small tentacles at the tips took control of the cadavers' skulls, turning their heads toward her and forcibly opening their eyelids to 'stare' straight at Selena.
Even with all her knowledge and experience, this scene directly assaulted her sanity, causing a brief lapse in her thoughts.
And in that moment of distraction, two tentacles surged forward, wrapping around her body.
By the time she came to her senses, she was wrapped up tightly and suspended in midair.
In that instant, some of the 'action works' she had seen before uncontrollably replayed in her mind.
Although most of her body had been transformed into a mechanized body, for the sake of comfort, the companies that made these bodies would install micro receptors on the surface of the skin, allowing the user to have sensory experiences just like those of flesh, or even more sensitive.
Tentacles began to retract from the corpses of her dead teammates and from Job, coiling back under He Ao's body.
From Selena's perspective, He Ao's form now looked as massive as a mountain, with countless tentacles forming a foundation that propped up the mountain, and on top of the mountain, a long neck extended with a skull-like head hanging from it.
Thump—thump—thump—
That was the sound of the dead teammates' bodies hitting the ground.
Selena looked at He Ao with a mixture of fear and curiosity, and tried asking, "Is your sanity still intact?"
Most Evil God Priests are devoid of reason. After they seek power from the Evil God, they are subjected to the Evil God's 'gaze.' Under this gaze, both their minds and bodies gradually become twisted and insane. Although they possess great power, they wield it recklessly, like a child flailing a hammer.
Thus, although Evil God Priests are strong, they are also easy to deal with. Just use a prop to shatter their last vestiges of reason, driving them completely into madness, and they become easy targets, ready to be killed or imprisoned.
This was the method Selena had used to deal with the Priest of the God of Knowledge named Yezola. However, in the recent fight, 'Yezola' had displayed clear intelligence.
This made Selena suspect that 'Yezola' had been pretending the whole time, that in actuality 'Yezola' was a high-level Priest who could maintain his sanity under the gaze of the Evil God. That's why she attempted to communicate with 'Yezola.'
The fact that he hadn't killed her must mean he had some purpose.
Perhaps she could use that...
As Selena was pondering this, He Ao tightened the tentacles that bound her a bit more and lifted her higher off the ground.
This was a warning not to entertain any clever ideas.
Meanwhile, He Ao began to look through the books on the ground.
There was only one book there, a sacrifice prepared by Job and the others, filled with a sense of antiquity; it was unclear where they had found this book.
He Ao glanced through it briefly. By instinct with this body, he recognized the text of this world. The book was just a simple primary school mathematics textbook, with no substantial content.
Selena, suspended in the air, seemed to sense his disappointment and cautiously said, "If you need books, there were many in the room we just explored. Those must have been your collection, right?"
While she spoke, she started to reboot her mechanized body's operating system. She had restarted it several times already but couldn't clear the virus; the entire operating system was almost entirely paralyzed. All she could do now was attempt to reinstall the operating system, erase all data, and restore it to its original state.
But reinstalling the system meant she would lose all combat ability for an hour, and after the reinstatement, most of the combat modules that had been loaded would be lost. However, no situation could be worse than the current one.
What she needed to do now was to stabilize this Evil God Priest and buy herself more time.
He Ao looked up at her as she spoke, but said nothing, still suspending her. He started to move towards the passage they had just emerged from, pulling out the metal stakes that had been planted around him as he walked.