To prevent the strange objects from being lost and causing immeasurable damage, the Angel Alliance chose to collect them all together and preserve them in secret warehouses around the world. The guardians are not only angels but also the alliance’s armed forces, which makes the security measures practically foolproof unless there’s a direct confrontation with a nation.

Nobody expected that the Demons, known not for their frontal combat prowess, could breach a "fortress" guarded by the Angel Alliance, much to Elorie’s surprise.

But she still didn’t understand what this had to do with the disappearance of angels and demons.

The Governor, as if reading her thoughts, released her hand and took out a metallic box from his pocket, opening it, "You should be familiar with what’s inside here."

"This is... the Ring of the Mind."

Elorie said in surprise. To be more precise, it is a Ring of the Mind from her own era. If Second New Paris City is already a century later, then this ring could be called a hundred-year-old antique.

It is almost identical to the one Raphael gave her, with a brass ring, central bulge, and the Latin words "Guardian" engraved on both sides. The only difference is that the ring Raphael gave was covered with copper foil in the middle, while the century-old ring had a crystal truly embedded.

"Yes, a stock item, now very rare. A complete classical mind ring like this can sell for twenty thousand euros on the black market. This one I carry with me has been passed down through the family for generations."

Twenty thousand!

Elorie was secretly shocked, knowing that back then, a ring only cost about a hundred euros, so most people would equip themselves and their families with one. If one could trade rings between both sides... wouldn’t that lead to instant wealth?

No... am I a fool? If I could truly travel freely back and forth between the past and the future, what use would money be? Of course, I should change the fate of Paris’s desolation!

The old Governor extended a pointed nail, inserted it into the edge of the bulged part, and gently pried it, and the crystal embedded in the center of the ring was immediately lifted out.

Elorie couldn’t help but utter a sound of surprise.

What kind of crystal was this? It was clearly just a thin layer.

But quickly, her attention was drawn entirely to what was hidden beneath the thin crystal—

It was a piece of "flesh" the size of a fingernail!

Instantly, the angel felt goosebumps rising on her back!

Because that piece of flesh was still moving! 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

It wasn’t some specimen, nor was it decaying, it maintained a rhythmic contraction in such a confined space, like the heart of an undead!

What does this mean!?

Isn’t the Ring of the Mind supposed to reflect power through the Flawless Crystal to protect people from being lured by demons? That’s why it was embedded with a crystal!

Elorie shook her head, unable to believe it. If every ring contained such an item, then where is the Flawless Crystal? What would this object, which is used by various countries and strictly guarded, be like?

Could it be that everything was a grand lie by the Angel Alliance?

"What is going on?" she pressed her forehead, unable to accept it, "Why is there such a thing in the ring!?"

"Child, the Angel Alliance promoted the concept of the Flawless Crystal mainly because they were worried about situations like yours—people finding it hard to accept that the power protecting them closely comes from a mass of deformed and twisted flesh," Nymph explained slowly, "But that’s the truth, the so-called Flawless Crystal is just a larger mass of flesh, and they all originate from the ’Lucy’ Mother, which was precisely what the demons attacked in the Holy Temple of the Himalayas."

"Ultimately, the secret vault of the Holy Temple was destroyed by explosives, burying the Mother along with themselves under rubble and snow. Since then, demons have vanished. Gradually, the Angel Alliance also discovered that no new angels appeared in the world. With the death of the last batch of angels, the old alliance became nominal."

Nymph paused here, "When I saw someone flew with Light Wings over the ruins of Paris today, I couldn’t believe my eyes. But the fact proved that you are indeed different—until now, you haven’t shown any sign of becoming mutated by the contaminated crystal source, which also convinces me that angels have power akin to that of the Flesh and Blood Mother!"

Wait, wait, wait... Elorie felt she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

What is the contaminated crystal source?

Why do angels have to be connected with this immortal piece of flesh?

Wanderers aren’t angels, and they haven’t mutated!

"I am an angel... but I think it doesn’t have much to do with whether or not there is a mutation." She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down a bit, and then cautiously said, "Besides, I still don’t understand why the demon’s attack on the place storing strange objects would turn Paris into what it is now?"

"Child, don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything you want to know." The Governor first reassembled the ring, carefully stored it away, then clapped his hands. A holographic projection immediately appeared behind her.

The image shown was of the surface of Paris City.

However, the camera quickly zoomed out, extending to a view from space—at this distance, Earth and the Moon formed an orbiting system.

"The disaster didn’t strike so suddenly. Roughly thirty years after the demons disappeared, we suffered the first strike. No radar around the world sounded an alarm, and the space-based warning satellites didn’t react because the attack came from the Moon."

Nymph pointed towards the Moon.

The holographic image immediately zoomed, turning the moon satellite into the focus of the screen.

"Hiss..." Elorie gasped.

How did the Moon get such a massive scar?

It looked like the centipede-shaped seam left after surgery—it covered almost half of the moon’s surface, and considering the size of the Moon, the scar was terrifyingly large.

"It’s not a scar, look carefully."

The image further enlarged—

"That’s a worm!?"

The moment she saw its details, Elorie’s heart even skipped a beat.

A worm-like entity lay on the lunar rock surface, almost completely blending in with the background—no, it literally blended in, it didn’t have a separate outline, its massive body was the continuous silhouette of mountains, and the long legs on its sides were the branches of those mountains. If forced to describe it, this eerie scene seemed like a sculptor roughly carved out a centipede on a spherical stone, looking reptilian, yet it was still a part of the stone sphere.

But she quickly realized she was wrong.

Because the back of the worm was moving.

Its rugged back was lined with many clusters of ghostly blue crystals, and those crystal clusters were growing from the mountains bit by bit, making them seem like they were alive.

Right then, one of the crystal clusters erupted as if shooting out towards space, leaving a dark pit at the corresponding mountain ridge location. This scene reminded Elorie of pulling out a blackhead when her skin was left with such a satisfying hole afterward.

However, when the camera traced the crystal cluster turning, she immediately regretted this out-of-place thought.

Because its aimed direction was Earth!

The vast distance between the Earth and the Moon, for it, only took a mere ten seconds—Elorie knew this was due to the accelerated footage, and also knowing the projection displayed historical events, yet her heart still leapt to her throat!

The crystal cluster glowed and heated due to intense friction as it passed through the atmosphere, dragging a long tail flame behind, resembling a meteor falling to Earth from afar.

But it wasn’t torn apart by the high heat and pressure.

It struck the ground almost vertically, with its impact point in North America.

Elorie watched it plunge into a city—exactly which city she no longer had the mind to ponder. As the crystal cluster itself didn’t deform, all kinetic energy was absorbed by the earth, the hardened surface rippling like lake water, each ripple forming giant waves of rubble several meters high! The skyscrapers made of reinforced concrete were toppled like dominoes by the waves, and tens of thousands of people were directly smashed into pulp.

The only fortunate thing was that the crystal cluster wasn’t large.

Its size was equivalent to a thirty-story building, slender and long, thus channeling most of its energy underground, with the shockwave on the surface only destroying half of a district.

At that moment, the casualty number popped up timely in the lower right corner of the screen: 5.94 million people.