“Qingzhu! It’s me! Calm down!”
Margaret fought the urge to strike down her supposed enemy, gripping Qingzhu’s wrist tightly as she shouted.
Her cultivation was stronger, her will firmer—she barely held onto a thread of clarity, yet the illusion before her still shook her heart to its core.
Dustin frowned as he watched the team descend into chaos.
This mirage demon’s illusion was truly troublesome—not only could it weave vast environmental illusions, but it could also plant personalized heart demons in each person’s mind, leaving them defenseless.
If this went on, they wouldn’t even need the mirage demon to strike—they’d die by their own delusions.
He unleashed another surge of divine sense, but this time it barely had any effect.
The illusion clung to their spirits like bone-deep rot—simply relying on a spiritual shock wasn’t enough to cleanse it completely.
“Close your eyes! Shut off your hearing! Guard your hearts—trust the people beside you!”
Dustin’s voice was cold as ice, carrying an authority that allowed no disobedience, echoing directly within each person’s mind.
The maddened guards, as if clutching at a lifeline, followed his command.
Suppressing their fear and killing intent by sheer willpower, they retracted their weapons and moved inward by memory and instinct, forming a tight circle back-to-back. They no longer looked or listened to the horrors around them.
But, of course, the mirage demon wouldn’t let them go so easily.
“Do you think shutting off your senses can free you from your inner fears and desires?”
The mirage demon’s voice reverberated through their minds like a curse.
“Look—your greatest fears… have come.”
Even with their eyes closed, terrifying scenes erupted within their consciousness.
The earth split open—countless ghastly hands clawed upward to seize their ankles.
The sky turned blood-red, raining down corrosive blood.
From every direction surged vague, shadowy figures radiating pure malice.
This was a direct strike upon their spirits—far deadlier than mere illusions of sight or sound.
“Ahh!”
One guard lost control, screaming as thin streams of blood seeped from his seven orifices—his spirit wounded beyond repair.
Margaret groaned, trembling as tragic visions of her father’s death and her kingdom’s collapse flooded her mind, threatening to crush her will.
Dustin knew they couldn’t stay on the defensive any longer.
He had to find the mirage demon’s true body—or shatter the core of the illusion itself.
Ignoring the endless onslaught of phantoms, he shut his eyes completely, withdrawing all of his divine sense inward, becoming as still as an old monk in meditation.
The cries of his companions, the horrors of the illusion, the mirage demon’s taunting voice—all seemed to drift far away.
His heart grew calm, like a still lake untouched by wind.
Within that inner lake, he no longer saw twisted illusions, but rather the very essence of the valley—the flow of its energies.
He saw the colorful, seductive threads of power converging from all directions toward a single source.
A spring—seemingly real, yet the true energy node of the entire illusion.
And deep within that spring pulsed a radiant, shifting core of seven-colored light—like a beating heart.
That was the mirage demon’s true form: the Mirage Pearl.
It wasn’t incorporeal—merely hidden at the boundary between the illusion’s truth and falsehood.
“Found you,” Dustin murmured.
The man who had stood motionless suddenly opened his eyes.
Gone was the confusion—only a crystal-clear awareness of truth remained, and a killing intent cold as steel.
He ignored the phantoms clawing at his mind, the wailing in his ears, and in a single motion, his figure became a streak of cyan light that tore through the air.
Man and sword became one—faster than sight could follow—driving straight toward the spring.
This strike carried all his essence, energy, and spirit.
His sword point was aimed not at the water’s surface—but at the throbbing core beneath it.
Even before the sword arrived, its killing intent had already locked onto its target—space itself seemed about to be pierced through!
The previously serene mirage demon shrieked in terror.
“How could you possibly find me—no—!”
She tried to summon every illusionary force at her disposal—barriers, whirlpools, even conjuring the image of the person dearest to Dustin to block his path.
But before the essence of Dustin’s Heart Sword, all of it was as fragile as mist beneath the sun.
Pffft!
A faint sound, like a bubble popping.
Dustin and his sword light plunged into the spring.
Time seemed to stop for an instant.
Then—the entire Mirror Mirage Valley shook violently!
The elegant pavilions and strange flowers shattered like glass, bursting into drifting specks of rainbow light that quickly dimmed and vanished.
The ghostly hands, blood rain, and shadows dispersed like smoke in the wind.
The valley returned to its original barren, deathly silence.
The spring dried up rapidly, revealing its base.
At the bottom lay a pearl the size of a fist, radiating a soft, fading rainbow glow.
A single crack marred its once-perfect surface, dimming its light.
Dustin stood at the edge of the dried spring, sheathing his sword slowly.
His face was pale—the Heart Sword, which abandoned all five senses and struck directly at the origin, had taken a heavy toll on his spirit.
Not far away, the mirage demon’s form reappeared—faint and flickering, barely holding together.
She stared at Dustin, eyes filled with venom, disbelief, and a trace of unwilling admiration.
“Such… a Heart Sword… to pierce even my origin…”
Her voice was hoarse and broken, stripped of its former ethereal allure.
Dustin looked at her calmly, saying nothing.
Knowing she was finished, the mirage demon gave him one last long look—as if to burn the image of the man who shattered her illusion into her memory.
Then, with a flash of rainbow light, her form exploded, seizing the cracked Mirage Pearl and vanishing into the rocky depths of the valley—like a startled bird fleeing into the night. - Marinien
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