This necromancer is going to seduce the beautiful girls who are already dead.

Edvina vanished into the darkness of the surrounding trees in an instant, while Leona immediately moved closer to Sheila.

Sheila was instantly transformed into a little mouse by the Abyss. Having already transformed into a mouse once before, Sheila was now quite adept at it, nimbly crawling up Leona's arm and into the collar of her clothes, peeking out her tiny head.

Sophia was rapidly approaching the Abyss and his group, a fact clearly indicated by Edvina's pendant. Edvina was reporting Sophia's movements to the Abyss in real time.

"She's in that tree!" Sheila's warning was transmitted to the other three through the ring.

Abyss moved immediately. Unlike his previous mild counterattack, Abyss's actions this time were quite swift and decisive. His fist was crackling with divine lightning, and his body shot out from his spot like a cannonball, punching the spot Sheila had just indicated.

A sharp blade appeared silently in front of Abyss and stabbed towards his face.

"Hmph." Abyss chuckled softly, letting Sophia's blade pierce his face. The imagined scene of the blade passing through his head did not occur; Abyss's body twisted twice under the attack and then disappeared.

That wasn't the Abyss's true form; he had just used an illusion to trick Sophia into attacking. Now, he appeared behind Sophia, and after leaving the Dark Realm, he reached out to grab where Sophia's head should be.

This attack was much more domineering than before, but Sophia was no ordinary person. Her body, which had just escaped from the "world's crevice," hid again as the attack missed. Abyss's grab couldn't even touch a hair on her head.

“Sophia has a unique ability to walk in the cracks of the world. Once this ability is triggered, you will no longer be able to harm her. Be careful of the magical bonds on your body; she will definitely go for the magic on you, not for you as a person,” Edvina reported immediately. Although Abyss already knew about Sophia's combat strength from her, Edvina still reminded Abyss with some unease.

"Understood." Abyss's reply was crisp and clean. Like Sophia, he also vanished into the Dark Realm after his attack missed.

Both of them hid in other dimensions, and the battle seemed to be over, but Sophia's target was not the Abyss; she was after Sheila.

“She’s coming this way!” Sheila immediately reported to Leona.

Leona knew that the Abyss had to use this method to find Sophia's weakness. This couldn't be considered using an ally as bait, since Sophia's original target was Sheila.

Sophia was indeed formidable, but Leona was not intimidated by the fact that her opponent was the greatest assassin in the history of the continent. She changed her stance to prevent Sheila from being exposed to the enemy's attack range immediately, and her muscles tensed up, her powerful fighting spirit ready to propel her body forward at any moment.

"Two o'clock!" Sheila suddenly announced Sophia's location.

Without a second thought, Leona moved swiftly, dodging an attack that appeared out of nowhere.

The dagger was originally aimed at Sheila, who was hiding in Leona's collar, but as the strongest martial arts genius on the continent, Leona was almost twice as fast as Sophia, and the attack had no effect at all.

The space was severed, creating a strong sense of disharmony, and a cold dagger flashed by.

This time, Abyss still couldn't detect Sophia's presence. His Dark Realm was now much weaker than Sophia's World Rift, because his was a kind of magic that touched the very essence of the world, while Sophia's was a natural ability. The two were completely incomparable in terms of speed of use.

"Leona, protect Sheila. I'll think of something as soon as possible!" Abyss told Leona in their shared thoughts.

"Leave it to me! I'll live and die with Sheila!"

Sophia's attacks were extremely fierce. She was also different from ordinary dark elf assassins. Ordinary dark elf assassins would choose to talk to their target or retreat directly after failing to strike once and exposing their target, looking for another opportunity later. Sophia, however, would continue to attack after failing to strike once, as if she intended to kill Sheila in one fell swoop.

With Sheila's prompting, Leona dodged another of Sofia's attacks. Sofia, smugly pleased with herself, claimed she hadn't managed to hurt anyone.

Abyss, however, was already waiting beside Leona. The moment Sheila spotted the direction Sophia was coming from, he attacked from the side and grabbed at Sophia's head.

This time, the Abyss felt his hand touch a soft strand of hair. Of course, the strand of hair disappeared the moment the Abyss touched it.

Abyss tried to set up a magical trap in the nearby space to slow Sophia down for a moment when she suddenly appeared, but he was quickly told that the magic had no effect on Sophia, even though the one who used the magic was Abyss.

Sophia's ability to slip into the rift between worlds was completely unaffected by the magic of that world, and her actions were not even affected.

Abyss's attempt to grab Sophia's head failed once again.

Sofia seemed to sense something was wrong, and her attacks became erratic, occasionally slashing at Leona with her sword.

Leona and Sofia are both combat geniuses, and in these few brief encounters, they gradually figured out each other's tactics—however, Sofia, who was in the shadows, clearly figured it out more.

Swish!

Although Leona's dodge was timely, Sofia cut off a third of her ponytail with a single stroke, scattering her silver-white hair all over the ground.

"Oh dear, my beautiful hair!" Leona cried out in alarm.

Sofia didn't care whether she had ruined Leona's prized long hair; her attack came at Leona again.

But just as she drew her sword, Edvina's hand emerged from the shadows, intending to block Sofia's attack!

Sofia's knife came to an abrupt halt, pausing briefly in mid-air.

In the short time she paused, the Abyss's attack arrived; a small hand, like a steel clamp, gripped Sophia's head tightly.

Chapter 179 The Terrifying Magic of the Abyss

Without any hesitation, Abis generated an extremely powerful suction force directly from his palm.

"Holy crap..." Leona, who had just dodged, didn't care about her long hair anymore. She was also speechless as she watched Abyss attack Sophia with magic.

Because the Abyss is now using an extremely vicious necromancer spell—soul drain.

Place your hand (or foot if you prefer) on the enemy's head, then use magic to forcibly extract their soul. This spell will instantly kill a person and bind their soul, turning them into the necromancer's slave. Those attacked by this magic will suffer immense pain, a pain surpassing any other form of agony, a true living hell.

Leona had never seen a necromancer use this technique, but she had read about it in historical novels. Generally, necromancers didn't use it; the souls drawn by this magic would inevitably go insane, doing more harm than good. They only used it to torture and kill people they disliked.

Even someone as powerful as Sophia couldn't immediately escape the attack from Abyss. Her body began to tremble uncontrollably, and the magical dagger that had been radiating a dangerous aura in her hand vanished at that moment.

Edvina, who had just blocked Sophia's attack route with her hand, silently withdrew it. A piece of flesh in her palm, struck by the aftershock of the magic dagger, had completely disappeared, and blood was gushing out.

Edvina pulled a roll of bandage from a pocket in her clothes, wrapped it around her hand, and watched as her best friend was subjected to what could be described as an inhuman magical attack by the Abyss.

"I'm sorry, Sophia," Abis whispered to Sophia, who was trembling in his hands.

Sophia's body was now completely out of control, her eyes flashing with the glow produced by the Abyss's magic. Her beautiful face was contorted in agony.

“The evil god puppets have souls, but their souls have been corrupted by the Lord of Delusion,” Abyss said calmly. “Therefore, my Soul Absorption technique can affect Sophia.”

The Abyss's ability to see through souls is impaired in the presence of the evil god's puppets, a conclusion Rebecca reached earlier in the City of Eternal Night. Unlike the victims of other evil gods, the souls of the evil god's puppets were not stolen; they remained intact within their bodies. Once these souls were corrupted, certain desires and obsessions were amplified infinitely, until they consumed all their sanity.

What does the Lord of Delusion eat? Rebecca doesn't have a definitive answer yet. Based on the existing evidence, the Lord of Delusion may feed on despair—but this doesn't apply to some of the evil god puppets, such as the wandering swordsman Lucini who previously "protected" his family's territory, or the genius assassin Sophia now in the hands of the Abyss.

Despair is not a necessary guest on their path to depravity.

The Abyss could feel its soul-drawing technique forcibly pulling the soul from Sophia's body, but a stubborn force was vying with the Abyss for ownership of the soul. The Abyss knew this must be the power of the Lord of Delusion; although His power wasn't extremely great, He was still a god, and surely He wouldn't lose a tug-of-war with a mortal.

The magic continued for nearly half a minute before Abyss released his grip and pushed Sophia's still trembling body away.

The soul absorption stopped, and Sophia's body trembled for a while before stopping.

Her eyes regained focus, and she gave the Abyss, who had just attacked her, a cold look before disappearing back into the void.

The pendant on Edvina's chest started flashing frequently, but the flashing frequency gradually decreased, indicating that Sofia had fled and abandoned the attack.

"Phew..." Leona breathed a sigh of relief, and painfully pulled her severed ponytail forward, looking at how it was now a third shorter. "Damn it, my proudest long hair has been cut off. My life is so miserable."

Sheila crawled out from under Leona's collar, up her clothes, and onto Leona's shoulder. She said to the Abyss, "Can I turn back into a human now, Mr. Abyss?"

“Let’s wait a little longer, just in case Sophia has any backup plans. You should hide on Leona for a while,” Abis said to Sheila, then turned to look at Edvina over there.

When Edvina saw Abyss looking at her, she smiled and waved her hand, saying, "It's alright, my hand injury is minor, and I've already stopped the bleeding with magic."

“You didn’t discuss this with me beforehand.” Abis looked at Edvina with a complicated expression. “I’m grateful that you’re willing to help me restrain Sophia, but this is really too dangerous.”

As he spoke, he grabbed Edvina's wrist and began to use healing magic on her, causing the wounds on her hand to heal and the severed blood vessels and muscle fibers inside to quickly return to their original state.

“If I had discussed this with you beforehand, I doubt you would have agreed. So I acted on my own.” Edvina smiled. “I knew Sophia wouldn’t attack me, which is why I dared to step in and take the fall. If I hadn’t done this, you might have needed more time to find Sophia’s weakness—and her weaknesses are hard to find. That would have been detrimental to the safety of Miss Sheila and Miss Leona.”

“That’s true.” Abis didn’t deny Edvina’s words. “However, I still want to thank you for your adventure.”

“It’s nothing—what about you? Have you found anything?” Edvina asked.

Leona tossed her ponytail back down and looked at Abyss curiously: "You were casting spells on Sophia's head for ages, but it didn't seem to have much effect. Did you see the look she gave you at the end? It was like she was saying, 'Don't let me catch you, or you'll be in big trouble!'"

“I didn’t capture her soul.” Abyss shrugged. “But it wasn’t a complete loss either, because I never intended to capture her soul in the first place. If the puppet of the Lord of Delusion could let me capture its soul so easily, what kind of evil god would it be? It might as well find a jelly to smash its head against and die.”

"So what did you do?"

“I was just using this magic to check on Sophia’s soul,” Abyss said with a slight smile. “And now, I’ve discovered something unusual about Sophia’s soul, which might explain some of the problems she has.”

Chapter 180 All's Fair in War

“Isn’t it certain that Sophia’s soul has a problem?” Leona didn’t understand what Abyss was talking about. “The Lord of Delusion would definitely corrupt her soul, isn’t that normal?”

However, apart from the thoughtless Leona, no one else immediately raised any questions. Edvina and Sheila both looked at the Abyss, waiting for him to explain what was wrong with Sophia's soul.

“Sophia’s soul problem isn’t about being corrupted,” Abyss shook his head and told Leona. “Her soul was already problematic before it was corrupted.”

"Huh?" Leona exclaimed in surprise, "What's the problem?"

“Ms. Edvina, I remember you mentioned the origin of the two daggers you obtained before.” Abyss turned to Edvina and confirmed, “You said that after Sophia was manipulated by the evil god, she appeared in your dream and gave you relatively accurate clues.”

“That’s right, I don’t know what’s going on.” Edvina nodded. “The reason I dared to take action just because Sophia appeared in my dream is because I felt that hiding like this was not a solution.”

“Sophia’s soul is now fixed inside her body by the power of the Lord of Delusion. I’ve been trying to absorb it with my soul-absorbing technique for a long time, but I haven’t been able to extract a single bit,” Abyss said, turning towards the spot where Sophia had disappeared. “However, during my absorption just now, I discovered that her soul is incomplete.”

"Incomplete?" Sheila asked in surprise. "What are the consequences of an incomplete soul?"

Abis, an expert in spiritual studies, was well aware of the negative consequences of a missing soul. He told Sheila, "A missing soul can lead to personality problems, such as developing a different personality, forgetting some of one's past emotional relationships, or directly affecting one's intelligence. However, this is only true if a small part of the soul is missing—if more than a third of the soul is missing, it will collapse and become a chaotic mass of spiritual energy. This rarely happens, and it almost never occurs intentionally."

"How much of Sophia's soul is missing?" Edvina asked.

“More than 95 percent,” Abis said confidently. “Based on my years of research on souls, this feeling is infallible. The vast majority of Sophia’s soul is no longer in her body. Her current body is merely an empty shell.”

"So Sophia is finished? No... With so much missing from her soul, it's more accurate to say that the missing part is the soul inside this body, right?" Leona clapped her hands.

“Ta-da, you got it right, Leona gets a point.” Abyss said to Leona with a smile, “Yes, that’s what I guessed too. Sophia transferred her soul out before it was corrupted by the Lord of Delusion, leaving only a small, harmless part inside her body.”

Upon hearing Abyss's words, Edvina's eyes, which had been somewhat dimmed by the less-than-optimistic situation, suddenly brightened. She opened her eyes wide and looked at Abyss: "So that's how it is! Then we've found the reason why Sophia was able to meet me in my dream before."

“Well, it seems that Sophia’s soul is somewhere else, and somewhere that the Lord of Delusion cannot reach.” This time, Abyss did not speak aloud, but instead used the communication ring he had given to Edvina to speak to Edvina, Sheila, and his followers. “Based on Sophia’s abilities, I guess that the remaining 95% or more of her soul is now hidden in the so-called ‘World Rift’.”

"So, Sophia can actually be saved?" Leona was also happy this time.

“I think so,” Abis replied. “If we can get to the rift between Sophia’s worlds, we might be able to rescue her soul from there. Then we can consider how to get her back to her original body.”

"Then how will you get in?" Leona asked again.

“Well… I’m not without a solution either.” Abyss smiled again, looking at Leona mysteriously. “I wonder if you’ve overlooked a detail from my previous battle with another of Ms. Edvina’s companions—that dog.”

Previously, when Abyss was fighting another of Edvina's companions, now known to be Lillian, he used a mastiff to launch a fierce attack on Lillian, tearing her body apart repeatedly. However, Abyss didn't just unleash the dog because he wanted to fight; his real purpose was to secretly plant some undead fleas, acting as spies, on Lillian's body.

During the time these undead fleas were implanted in Lillian, they did indeed send back a lot of valuable information, including the specific methods Lillian used magic when she entered their Netherworld.

"You mean the messages those fleas sent back before? But could their Underworld be directly related to the Rift of the World?" Leona asked.

“There shouldn’t be a direct connection. Even if Sophia planned to tamper with things to leave herself a way out, she would have to consider her own safety and secrecy,” Abyss said. “But think about it, although their Underworld has some similarities to mine, it’s not quite the same. Where did these differences come from? Were they randomly filled in? Magic isn’t like building a house where you can just stuff in any color of bricks. If even one part doesn’t hold up, the whole thing will collapse.”

“That makes sense…” Leona understood what was going on.