“Hm?”
Margaret turned around in surprise, looking at Dustin in confusion.
Dustin’s gaze did not linger on the breathtaking scenery before them. Instead, his sharp eyes swept slowly across the entire valley—like an eagle’s, carrying a chill that could pierce through illusion.
“What we see before us may not be real,” he said calmly. “The spiritual energy here is abundant, yet unstable—lacking any foundation. The celestial music sounds beautiful, yet its rhythm is too perfect, losing all natural flow. Feel carefully—the scent of the flowers, the sound of water, the drifting mist… don’t they seem too deliberate? As if crafted solely to please the senses?”
At his words, Margaret and several of the stronger guards focused their senses—and indeed began to notice something wrong.
The floral fragrance, when inhaled for too long, turned cloying and dizzying. The sound of the running water never changed in rhythm, as if endlessly repeating the same tune. Even the mist that swirled around them drifted in strangely fixed patterns, as though following invisible rules.
“It’s an illusion formation!” Margaret gasped, cold sweat breaking out across her back.
Had Dustin not warned her, she would have been completely lost within the false paradise.
“A very refined one,” Dustin said with a hint of admiration—but his tone was mostly grave. “This isn’t a mere visual trick. It acts directly on the mind and magnifies the deepest desires of those who enter. What you see is only the ‘truth’ your heart longs for.”
As if to confirm his words, the scene ahead began to change subtly.
The pavilions and towers grew clearer, and within them, shadowy figures appeared.
Margaret’s pupils contracted sharply.
She saw him!
At the window of the highest jade tower stood a middle-aged man in imperial yellow robes, kind-faced but pale and sickly, gazing into the distance with eyes full of longing.
It was her father—the Emperor she missed day and night.
And beside him stood a noble woman in royal robes, gently supporting him, smiling tenderly at Margaret.
Her long-departed mother!
“Father! Mother!” Margaret cried out, tears instantly blurring her vision. Her reason nearly collapsed as emotions flooded in.
She wanted nothing more than to rush forward into that long-lost, warm embrace.
“Wake up!”
Dustin’s low voice thundered through her consciousness like a bolt of lightning.
At the same time, he formed his fingers into a sword seal; pure, calming light gathered at his fingertips as he lightly touched her brow.
A cool current of energy surged into her mind. Margaret’s body trembled, and the figures of her “father” and “mother” twisted like reflections shattered on water—growing faint, transparent, and finally vanishing into nothingness.
The radiant jade tower dissolved once again into drifting mist.
The illusion shattered. A crushing wave of emptiness surged through her heart. Margaret staggered, face deathly pale, and would have fallen if Qingzhu hadn’t caught her.
She gasped for breath, shaken to the core.
The other guards, meanwhile, had each fallen into their own illusions.
One saw a cave filled with mountains of treasure. Another saw long-dead loved ones returned. Some saw themselves crowned as martial lords, worshiped by countless followers.
They laughed, cried, danced, or knelt to invisible figures—utterly lost within the illusions born of their own desires, blind to the deadly danger around them.
“Hold your minds steady! Guard your consciousness! Everything before you is false!” Dustin’s voice boomed like a temple bell, imbued with immense mental power that reached each person’s ears clearly.
But the illusion formation was immensely strong. His voice only awakened a few of the more disciplined guards for a brief moment—most remained lost within their dreams.
Two guards, trapped in a vision of shared treasure, turned on each other in greed—blades flashing, blood splattering. Within moments they lay dead, still wearing blissful smiles as if clutching their imagined riches.
The sight chilled Margaret to her bones.
Dustin’s brow furrowed—he knew he could not let the formation run rampant any longer.
He drew in a deep breath. His eyes began to glow faintly with blue-gold light. A vast, ocean-deep spiritual force radiated outward from him, as solid and unyielding as steel.
“Pierce Illusion!”
There was no thunderous sound—only the silent ripple of invisible power sweeping across the valley like waves upon water.
Where it passed, the grand towers, the blooming flowers, the waterfalls—all twisted, wavered, and began to fragment like paint scraped from a canvas—revealing the grim truth beneath.
There was no paradise here.
They were still in a barren valley—jagged rocks jutting from the ground, leafless trees withered and dead. The soil was dark red, as if soaked in blood, and the air reeked faintly of mildew and sulfur.
The melodious music was gone, replaced by the mournful wail of the wind. The floral fragrance had turned to the stench of rot.
Only a stream in the distance seemed real—but beside its spring lay scattered bones, some human, some beast.
The so-called paradise was nothing more than a deadly trap cloaked in illusion. - Marinien
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