781 Drastic Changes In Mirage Abyss

Bali unconsciously held his breath as he watched Mirage Queen's spaceship enter an underground tunnel.

A few seconds later, the space fluctuated and the Abyss Ruler left.

Bali sighed in relief before turning to Varian who was having a solemn expression since he saw Mirage Queen.

"Thinking about her words?"

Varian clenched his fist and placed it on his chest. "I have a bad feeling."

"Are we still attacking the second city?" Bali asked.

According to the plan, they had to destroy a few cities before the defenses grow tighter and return to the planetoids to settle the differences.

In the best case, Bali could destroy all the level 9s on the planetoids and let humans occupy them.

But after Mirage Queen's ominous words, Bali wondered if he could meet the minimum goals of the plan.

"We're not attacking," Varian shook his head and said in a sharp tone. "Boo, we're getting outta here."

Without asking for Bali's opinion, the Ghost ship flew through the silver clouds and headed for the exit.

"If we go now, we won't even reach the minimum goals. Mars will be done for." Bali protested against the decision.

"We can take down the planetoids," Varian was adamant. "This Abyss, I'm not sure why it's giving m—"

The ghost ship suddenly flipped and Varian collapsed to the ground along with his couch.

Bali, on the other hand, stood up and spread out his space sense to check the surroundings.

But there were no enemies.

"Boo, what was that?" Varian asked in annoyance as he stood up.

Boo appeared in the room with a scared expression. "M-Master!"

"What happened?"

Boo raised its shivering hand and pointed to the sky.

Varian, along with Bali, glanced out of the window and their jaws dropped.

A huge silvery-purple vortex was forming in the sky, right above them!

"That thing, it's completely hijacking Boo's navigation. Just now, we hit a metal mountain." Boo explained the situation in a shaky voice.

Varian's chest heaved up and down as he looked at the vortex with a serious expression.

"Abyss Will," Bali's tone dropped to a grave tone. "And it's gathering its power to attack us. We better hurry up or we'll end up facing Mirage Queen and an Abyss Will as strong as her."

Boo nodded but showed a troubled expression. "The navigation system isn't…"

Varian looked at Bali and the latter shook his head. He just checked the outside and they were now wrapped in a field of psychic energy.

He could teleport. But due to the field of psychic energy, his sensing wouldn't be accurate.

"We're in trouble," Varian said and as if answering his call, hundreds of lights glowed on the horizon.

Spaceships.

The spaceships of hundreds of level 8s, dozens of level 9s, and heading them all was the Mirage Queen herself.

"Bali will get out alive, but that devil, he must die," Mirage Queen's eyes grew cold as she flew closer to the vortex.

She forced the Abyss Will to find Ghost Ship and paid the price.

Now, Abyss Will could no longer act as surveillance and inform her of the humans intruding into the Abyss.

She turned it from a radar covering the entire Abyss to a detector that would find Ghost Ship, Varian, Enigma, and Bali—even if Boo did its best to hide.

Not only that, Abyss Will itself could trap them in illusions and its strength would only be higher than peak level 9s.

Combined with her, it wouldn't be wrong to say Varian would be facing two Sovereign Psychics.

"If they left a few seconds early, then I wouldn't have found them." She sighed inwardly.

Under the vortex, Varian grimaced at the looming danger. "Bali, can we teleport outta here?"

"I might end up teleporting into the middle of their army."

"I can do something about it," The door opened and Enigma stepped in. "Sovereign Bali, lend me your space power and I can take us out of here."

"How confident are you of not landing us in the middle of their army?" Bali didn't question Enigma's ability to teleport.

The higher-ups of the federation had long known that Enigma was able to 'escape' from even Sovereigns. Their most accepted guess was that she had a treasure that came close to being an artifact.

With the recent findings about her identity, it was believed that Enigma's treasure might even be an artifact.

With the artifact, she could teleport even better than Bali according to some parameters, but it's useless if she took them to the Mirage Queen's army.

"It's safer than you doing it," Enigma said bluntly and turned to Varian. "But I can make it safe if Boo allows my power to fill the ghost ship."

Varian nodded first and fell into thinking later. He decided to trust her and time was tight, so he didn't ask for any explanation.

Enigma got Varian's permission and took a deep breath.

Under Bali's curious gaze, heavy darkness spread from her and filled everything in sight.

The ghost ship was enveloped by a layer of darkness.

Varian found himself in a world of darkness. He couldn't see, touch or talk. It was as if someone cut off his senses and made him an observer.

'So, this is the power of darkness.' He sighed and understood Enigma's plan.

Even before Ghost ship, Enigma was able to sneak into the Abyss. As long as she didn't use a lot of power, she remained undetected.

Before Varian, she was the only one who was able to do it and it baffled everyone.

'The current Abyss Will can see through her cloak of darkness and Boo's stealth. But if they're stacked, then we should be able to hoodwink it, even though it'll find us eventually.'

As Varian realized, Enigma's plan worked and the vortex above the sky shook. The Abyss Will suddenly had trouble 'pinpointing' the enemy.

Enigma stretched her hand towards Bali and a beam of dark light flew out of the Sovereign.

The card inside Enigma shook.

Taking advantage of the short period when Abyss Will wasn't locking them down, Enigma used Bali's space power and teleported them.

"What?!"

"How did they escape?"

"What happened to the Abyss Will?"

The Abyssal army was dumbfounded at this development.

Mirage Queen chewed on her lip as she stared at the horizon.

The vortex that was previously here was now thousands of miles away. Even after all the suppression, the ghost ship managed to teleport there.

"Go! To the planetoids!"

Mirage Queen declared.

Three minutes later, after confirming that Ghost Ship exited the Mirage Abyss, Mirage Queen stopped outside the Abyss.

Then, with a wave of her hand, the huge silvery crack spanning hundreds of miles—the entrance to Mirage Abyss—closed up.

Now, only a small tunnel remained.

Nodding in satisfaction, Mirage Queen led her forces to the planetoids.

Before she left, her voice spread for thousands of miles. "Bali, I'm waiting for you."

"…"

"…"

"…"

A few hundred miles away from the new entrance, Varian, Enigma, and Bali looked at each other.

"Uh, is it really okay?" Boo asked.

"Just try once."

Ghost ship approached the silver tunnel and entered it when everything turned red.

Varian, Enigma, and Bali paled at the same time.

Varian wiped the sweat off his forehead as he tried to forget the Abyssal he saw just a second ago.

When that light faded, Varian found himself on half-destroyed earth, facing the only Abyssal he dreaded.

Like in a dream, Varian forgot how he got there, and it all felt real. The next thing he knew, he was being crushed to death under that Abyssal's attacks.

The planets were destroyed one by one and the Abyssal army slaughtered humans like they were cutting weeds.

As Sarah and Sia were about to get killed, Varian found himself back in the ghost ship.

"Ha-Haa! That's too dangerous!" Varian took deep breaths as he calmed his racing heart.

Bali closed his eyes as he tried to forget that terrible illusion. He became a child once again and was locked in his room by his parents. This time, they forgot him and he never came out.

Enigma turned her head away from them and closed her eyes shut to stop the tears from falling. In her vision, she became a spectator and saw herself killing Varian that night.

'It's an illusion. It's not real.' She told herself to heal her crushed heart.

"J-Ja…" Hearing the soft whispers, the three turned to the ghost and saw that even Boo was shivering. "J-Jai Empire…"

There were tears of fear in the corners of Boo's eyes.