The male supporting character was actually myself.

They discovered that the so-called abyss was actually an entrance to another world, essentially a passage forcibly opened by cutting open the edge of the world, and the creatures living in it were called the Bizarre.

The entrance to the abyss isn't very large, but its interior is shaped like an inverted triangle, becoming increasingly vast the deeper one goes. Until the final battle ten years ago, when all the strange creatures retreated to the deepest reaches of the abyss, humanity was unable to fathom its true size or how many unknown monsters still lurked within.

It is known that the levels of the bizarre are divided into N, R, A, S, SS, SSS, and Super SSS levels.

A being that reaches the S-level of eeriness can be called an evil god.

They possess the ability to tempt and corrupt humanity, often using whispered murmurs as a lure to entice those with weak wills to perform rituals that summon power and incite them to believe in it and receive more energy.

However, the evil gods all have certain distance limitations; the farther the distance, the more difficult it is to establish a connection.

This is why the Xuan Kingdom, which is farther from the abyss, was less affected, while countries or small island nations that were closer were hit hardest and almost destroyed in the first wave of the attack.

There are even many countries that are controlled by evil gods, with the entire population almost fanatically worshipping a certain so-called deity.

This corruption involves Huo Mingyao, the former super executor and lord of Dragonbone City, a bizarre or evil god. He is a strange lord located in the deepest part of the abyss, whose strength exceeds SSS level, and is named the Wrathful Moses.

It excels at stirring up anger, using anger as a medium to absorb energy. When it senses extreme anger, it can unilaterally establish an enticing connection.

After being corrupted, Huo Mingyao automatically became a bridge connecting the enraged Mesius with the human world.

In the incident at the church headquarters square, Huo Mingyao devoured all the life energy of the extremely angry humans with just one breath, causing more than fifty people to die on the spot and nearly a hundred people to age irreversibly and become physically weak after having a large amount of energy drained from them.

All the energy he temporarily possessed was taken back after the evil god abandoned Huo Mingyao.

"It sounds like a combination of pyramid schemes, predatory lending, and pig butchering scams." Jiang Chen frowned and shook his head when he heard this. "First, they lure you with benefits, and once you fall into corruption, you become a tool to extract power."

Once the pigs are fattened up or have no further use, the evil god will take everything back, with interest.

The person who acts as the intermediary not only gets nothing, but ultimately loses their life.

Li Moran obviously didn't know what those terms meant, but he agreed with what Li Moran said later: "Indeed, the evil gods all use similar tactics."

They can sense the deep-seated desires within humans and utter murmurs to tempt them.

Once you're hooked and believe in evil gods, you'll become their complete tool, ultimately losing everything, including your initial investment. Therefore, it's crucial to always maintain your integrity and avoid being corrupted by temptation.

Chapter Seventeen: I Want to Contribute My Strength

"The Wrathful Mesius is extremely troublesome during the Dark Ages, as its true form is very well hidden and difficult to find. Once a connection is established with a believer, it will supply them with a large amount of magic, encouraging them to cause enough destruction and absorb more anger. Once discovered, the Wrathful Mesius will take back all the power it infused with, with interest, and then disappear without a trace."

Li Moran helplessly spread his hands and said, "The most troublesome thing about evil gods is that they are too good at capturing the desires in people's hearts."

Huo Mingyao was clearly in a state of extreme anger and despair, and wanted revenge, so he was directly transformed into a bizarre state after being contaminated.

Even if the evil god did not reclaim his magic, he had already degenerated into a mindless alien, ultimately only able to wreak havoc as an energy vessel, and after death automatically offering all his magic to the evil god.

Many heretics who believe in evil gods are not outwardly apparent.

Unlike Huo Mingyao, whose body was infused with a large amount of magic power in a very short period of time, they at most used summoning rituals to bestow some abilities to satisfy their personal desires when needed. In return, they would actively seek out the things required by the evil god and offer them as sacrifices.

The relationship between them and the believers is more like a transaction.

But as long as one believes in an evil god, unless that person is destroyed or killed, they can never completely escape it in their lifetime, and even after death, their soul power will be devoured.

"Trading rules?" Jiang Chen asked thoughtfully, fiddling with the camera.

It's likely that when the mission world was initially created, there was only a background setting and an incomplete outline, and the characters' stories hadn't been developed yet, so the original owner's memories were basically useless.

After several days of careful study, he discovered that beneath the glamorous surface of the mission world, the core was actually all magic.

Perhaps it's also a fallback for the world to adjust itself—just blame all the inexplicable things on magic.

For example, the latest camera he bought was actually just an empty shell with a magic stone inside that served as its power source. Many complex magical runes were combined together, and by activating it with the magic stone, it could replace the intricate mechanical structure inside a camera in the normal world to perform various recording operations.

The same applies to the Call Magic Stone, which has similar functions to a mobile phone.

Even the network and the city's power source are controlled by magic, spells, and magic stone towers, but in the original owner's memory, no one could clearly decipher the energy source of these runes.

Why do they work when combined?

Where did these strange symbols, which have nothing to do with human writing, come from?

Who invented it? And how did it develop so many practical functions?

From this perspective, we can only attribute everything to the setting. The laws of the mission world dictate that they can exist, so there's no need to consider things like energy conservation.

After the Dark Ages ended, the human world developed rapidly thanks to omnipotent magic.

The number of survivors was not large, but fortunately, the magic enabled the world, whose technology had regressed after the war, to skip the industrial age and evolve directly into the magic age.

People's daily lives, from clothing and food to shelter and transportation, are inseparable from magic, and even the most basic source of power has become magic stones.

However, the source of the magic stones is the Abyss, where only large quantities of pure magic stones can be mined for use by human cities. In other words, since the Abyss opened, the human world has been inextricably linked to it. If the Abyss were to be completely closed or disintegrated, the human world would also quickly collapse and revert to its original state.

So... most likely, we can only take the protagonist to the abyss once, clear out all the strange things, and then the mission world can develop properly, right?

"We've filmed for so long, shouldn't that be enough?" Li Moran's throat was dry from talking about the origin of the abyss, so he asked tentatively.

Jiang Chen checked the shooting time and estimated that a lot of useful material could be edited out, so he nodded to indicate that it was approved.

After struggling for most of the afternoon, he finally finished making the science video.

Meanwhile, the church had already taken action, deleting and banning various online comments, even banning a large number of accounts and releasing a bombshell about Wen Ruyu's scandal to divert some traffic, which barely managed to reduce the heat.

But no matter what their technical department tried, the website called "League of Legends" remained standing.

Even because other online platforms completely banned discussions of the strange events at the church headquarters square, all the leaked short videos were deleted, leaving angry citizens with no choice but to flood Jiang Chen's website to leave messages and post.

As a result, the website, which already had its own "natural skills," saw its popularity skyrocket. When he uploaded Li Moran's science popularization videos, its activity level reached its peak.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! The church is still trying to cover it up. We can't leave comments or discuss the weird stuff anywhere else except on this website!"

"The Church is despicable! Our martyrs fought for so many years to get through the dark ages and drive the monsters back into the abyss. Look at how outrageous the novels and movies are now! The monsters are all treated like idiots, and a little hero can easily wipe them out. It's an insult to our heroes!"

"Yeah, if they were really as bizarre, stupid, and weak as they are portrayed in movies and TV shows, would our heroes have fought for so many years? It's like they're insulting our intelligence! And yet, there are so many idiots who idolize them!"

"The strange creature suddenly retreated into the abyss, remaining silent for the past ten years. What if it's still brewing an even bigger conspiracy?"

"I've heard that the entire nation of Mudaka is so obsessed with an evil god that they consider it an honor to be chosen as a sacrifice and burned alive. It's terrifying to think about!"

………………

Looking at the rapidly refreshing comments, Li Moran couldn't help but feel moved by the public's urgent desire to know.

According to the child's analysis, the church adopted a policy of keeping the people ignorant in order to consolidate its rule, turning those under its jurisdiction into happy fools who did not use their brains or think actively, and who were immersed in a deliberately created entertainment atmosphere every day, so as to solidify the class system.

If the Church, this behemoth, were truly a sharp blade capable of shielding the people from disaster, then it would be understandable. However, it fails to do so, constantly deceiving the public into having no sense of crisis, and even turning against heroes for its own benefit—it's utterly short-sighted and exploitative!

We must make the public realize that they should not be fooled and manipulated by the church into following its every command!

"Oh right, I've been so busy cleaning up the church's mess that I haven't told you where you went that night." He turned back to the child and asked seriously, "Did you really go out to kill bandits by smashing scrolls?"

Jiang Chen's lips curled into a slight smile as he pulled out a memory card and inserted it into the computer. His hands flew across the keyboard. "I not only went, but I also recorded it. Didn't the bishop release a public statement this morning, completely distancing the church from the criminal gang?"

Since the monumental heroes protected the people, they have given the world a great gift;

As an unsung hero, I naturally want to contribute my share!

Upload, click publish, and a dozen new videos are quickly posted on the website.

"Single-handedly wiped out the entire criminal organization—Skull Hand!"

"Keep up the fight and wipe out the arrogant bandits—the Aryan Brotherhood!"

"The Blood Knights were destroyed by this man!"

………………

Chapter Eighteen: How is this possible?

"What do you mean by 'no news'?" The archbishop looked up at his subordinate who had come to report, his brows furrowing slightly. "I told you to notify the elites of the five major regiments to evacuate immediately."

The Huo Mingyao pollution and corruption incident has put us in a very passive position. Now we urgently need to do something to demonstrate the ability and strength of the implementers!

Taking advantage of the opportunity to "clean up" criminal gangs to quell public resentment also conveniently covers up the inside story that Huo Mingyao and his gang of idiots privately revealed. Anyway, with no way to prove anything, the major gangs will be eliminated by the enforcers. Stirring up emotions will make the public extremely grateful to the church.

It was just a message; what do you mean by "no response"?

The subordinate swallowed hard, feeling a little guilty, and said, "It's just... we can't get in touch with them by phone."

As you know, they are nominally a criminal organization, and their bases are located in relatively remote mountains or places with few people. There have been times when the signal was bad, but after a few tries, we were able to transmit information successfully.

But since the night before last, there has been no answer to my calls.

"Could it be that he ran away after knowing he would be exposed? That shouldn't be the case..." The bishop was also puzzled.

However, the practice of secretly transferring violators from the legion to form bandit groups can only be carried out in secret. After all, most of the violators still maintain their loyalty and joined the legion to protect their homes and country. If it becomes an open secret, most of the violators might turn against the church under the leadership of some radicals.

Due to numerous limitations, even the bishop and the five major bandit groups could only communicate through clandestine channels.

When they learned of the exposure, they were so busy dealing with the mess Huo Mingyao and his group had made that they failed to immediately activate their covert communication channels to arrange for the group's elite members to evacuate. It hasn't even been a few days, how come they can't get in touch with them anymore?

"Sir, they haven't handed over their profits for this month yet," the subordinate whispered, "That's a huge sum of money! Could they have found out they've been caught and run off with the money?"

The bishop snorted coldly, "Run? If they really run away with the money, then the whole family they're holding in the city will be dragged out and fed to the dogs!"

But where can they run to?

Unless I go to another country and hide there forever to escape the magic's pursuit, I'll eventually fall into the church's hands, and they'll know how powerful I am!

Moreover, with all five regiments losing contact at the same time, they couldn't possibly have secretly conspired to run away together, could they?

"Then...should we send someone over under the guise of reconnaissance to investigate?" After a moment's consideration, the subordinate suggested, "The five major regiments together number several hundred people; it's impossible that they all escaped. If we can catch just one, we can find clues and use tracking magic to capture them!"

There's a fixed day each month for secret profit accounting and transfers. This month, the five major bandit groups haven't settled their accounts or handed over their profits yet, which is a considerable sum of money, and I still need these assets to make transactions...

"It's all Li Moran's fault!" The bishop became more and more agitated, his eyes slightly red, and he slammed his fist on the stone table, muttering curses under his breath, looking somewhat terrifying.

The subordinates didn't dare to breathe loudly, bowing their heads and trying to minimize their presence to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

If you calculate carefully, the archbishop should be almost two hundred years old this year. It is said that when the Dark Age came, he was already nearly a hundred years old, frail and on the verge of death. Unexpectedly, he was lucky enough to catch the fast train of the magical explosion era.

With the combined efforts of the various superpowered individuals, the Archbishop not only survived but also "rejuvenated," maintaining his physical condition and appearance at the age of forty.

If one were not in the know, one would probably not know that this seemingly energetic middle-aged man has actually lived for nearly two hundred years.

Perhaps it's because he's getting older that his personality has become more stubborn and eccentric. In any case, the archbishop has long lost his former calm and approachable nature. He's not only short-tempered but also prone to outbursts of anger and taking it out on others.

Some people whispered among themselves that the archbishop had lived too long by relying on magic and was afraid of death, so he was unwilling to let go of what he held onto, fearing that others would take away his power and wealth and he would lose the means to prolong his life. That's why he intensified his efforts to amass wealth and seize military power, without any regard for anything else.

The Pope was busy with various affairs and rarely had time to spare, the Son of God didn't care about anything, and no one in the Church could control him.

Working under a bishop requires extreme caution and trepidation. One must pray daily that one will not incur the bishop's wrath, for the consequences of such anger are quite severe!