“Hmm?” Grace whipped around, staring at Dustin with confusion written across her face. He wasn’t admiring the breathtaking view like the others. His sharp eyes swept across the valley like a predator searching for weakness, cold and penetrating.
“Don’t believe everything you see,” he said. “While the spiritual energy here is abundant, it feels scattered and lacks a solid foundation. The music is too flawless to be natural. And the air, the flowers, and the mist… Don’t they feel too artificial, as if they only exist to trick your senses?”
His words made Grace and a few guards with higher cultivation levels focus their senses. Indeed, they noticed something was amiss.
After lingering in the air, the floral fragrance carried a cloying sweetness that faintly clouded the mind. The sound of flowing water maintained an impossibly perfect rhythm, lacking the natural variation of a real stream. Even the drifting mist and clouds seemed to move in a fixed, patterned way.
“It’s an illusory formation,” Grace said. A cold sweat broke out on her back. Had Dustin not warned her, she might have completely lost herself in that illusory paradise.
“It’s a highly sophisticated one,” Dustin said, his tone carrying both respect and gravity. “It doesn’t just trick the eyes. It targets the mind, reflecting your deepest desires back at you. What you see is the ‘ truth’ you want to see.”
As if to prove his words, the scenery ahead began to shift. The pavilions and towers seemed to grow clearer. Within them, a few faint figures materialized.
Grace’s eyes widened in shock.
At the tallest window of the crystal tower stood a middle-aged man in gold-trimmed robes. His face was kind but pale with sickness, and his eyes were filled with longing. It was her father, Valon, whom she missed day and night.
Beside her father stood a graceful woman in an elegant gown. Her hand was resting lightly on his arm as she smiled and waved at Grace. It was her mother, who had died years ago.
“Father! Mother!” Grace cried out, her composure shattered. She threw all caution to the wind, ready to rush forward into the warm embrace she had yearned for so deeply.
“Snap out of it!”
Dustin’s low command cracked through her mind like thunder. At the same time, he formed a sword finger. With a purifying, mind-cleansing light swirling around their tips, he gently tapped the spot between the eyebrows. A stream of cool energy shot straight into her crown, and her body shuddered.
The images of her parents rippled and distorted like disturbed water, fading into transparency before disappearing entirely. Even the heartwarming scene at the crystal tower reverted to a shadowy illusion shrouded in mist.
With the illusion broken, the crushing emptiness that followed nearly knocked Grace off her feet. She staggered, her face drained of color. If Judith hadn’t caught her in time, she would have collapsed on the spot. She gasped for breath, and her heart was still trembling with fear.
The other guards had also succumbed to their own illusions. Some saw treasure hoards glittering in caves, while others were reunited with long-lost loved ones.
Some even saw themselves as the supreme master of the martial world, revered by all.
They laughed foolishly, wept bitter tears, or kneeled in reverence to the void. The guards were utterly consumed by their desires and unaware of the deadly reality around them.
“Steady your minds and guard your inner sanctums. None of this is real,” Dustin shouted.
His voice cut through the chaos, sharp and clear, reaching every mind and jolting them toward awareness.
However, the illusion’s hold was strong.
His shout only briefly roused a few guards with higher cultivation and stronger wills.
The majority remained trapped in their delusions.
Two guards, fighting over the illusory ” treasure”, even began to attack each other with their blades. In moments, blood stained the ground as they fell in that paradise. Their faces were still bearing satisfied smiles of having obtained their prize.
The sight sent a chill of horror through Grace, who had just roused from the illusion.
Dustin frowned slightly, knowing he could no longer let the illusion formation keep consuming everyone. He took a deep breath, and a faint cyan-gold light glowed in his eyes. A wave of immense divine sense erupted from him and spread outward.
“Break the illusions!”
There was no earth-shattering roar, only an invisible wave of divine sense that swept through the valley.
Wherever it passed, the beautiful pavilions, exotic flowers, and flowing waterfalls began to twist and waver violently, like a drawing being erased. Then, they shattered and peeled away, revealing the true scene hidden beneath.
The paradise was gone, and they were still standing in a desolate valley. It was now strewn with jagged rocks and dead trees. The ground was a dark red, as if stained by blood, and the air carried the faint scents of mildew and sulfur.
The enchanting music was now the moan of the wind. Even the fragrant aroma had become the stench of decay.
Only the distant flowing spring seemed real. But around its source lay scattered, bleached-white bones that belonged to humans and beasts alike. The so-called paradise was nothing but a death trap, hidden by a powerful illusion.
