Rationally speaking, he wanted to regard the other party's words as nonsense...but he couldn't suppress the fear in his heart.
Ever since he obtained the Mad King's Skull and studied some of its rules, Count Orleans had both ambition and fear in his heart——
On the one hand, he believed that since he had the head of the Mad King, he could defeat any enemy; on the other hand, he also knew that he could fail no matter what enemy he faced.
Could it be that this time... I was really abandoned by it?
Or maybe the Swan King in the Box of Nothingness has woken up? He realized that he was using him? Now he wants to take the opportunity to kill himself?
Or is his previous worry correct... Yassen really cooperated with the Vendome family and the Hawkeye organization to study the secret of the Mad King's Skull, and now they want to snatch his treasure?
Countless thoughts floated and fell in his mind, and the fear in his heart made Count Orleans feel extremely cold.
It was like swallowing a piece of ice, feeling the intense cold cut open my esophagus like a knife and penetrate into my belly.
The moment he had such a thought, the Count of Orleans realized that it was not an illusion.
...Why is my belly so cold?
Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?
Does Yassen stop singing? When did he stop?
The Count of Orleans slowly lowered his head and saw a trace of blood gradually emerging from his belly.
Streams of blood spurted out, splashing onto the ground and walls. When he lowered his head and saw that he was cut in half, the blood suddenly spurted out.
Like water from a bucket splashed on the ground, the blood splashed onto the ground with a splash, splashing in a semicircle.
His upper body fell backwards and fell to the ground. An unusual fatigue and powerlessness swept through his heart, making him feel like a mortal. He closed his eyes and was about to fall asleep forever...
……etc.
Speaking of which, will my bleeding be so heavy?
The moment this thought came to his mind, he realized something was wrong.
"No...wait!"
Suddenly, the Count of Orleans opened his eyes.
He was still standing in the corridor where the fog had just been dispersed, and none of the three people had launched an attack yet.
Yassen did not sing, and the Moonchild did not take out the Winter Demon's scythe.
"...Sure enough, everything before was an illusion."
He breathed a sigh of relief, suppressed the fear and fear in his heart, pretended to be calm and said calmly: "You can't hide this kind of thing from me."
"oh?"
Seeing this, the Moon Son in front of him suddenly showed a cold smile: "Are you so sure that you have come out of the hallucination?"
"……What?"
The Count of Orleans opened his eyes wide in shock.
He looked down and saw a trace of frost quickly spreading from his abdomen to both sides, freezing himself in the ice sculpture in the blink of an eye.
The harsh cold suddenly froze his thinking.
I don't know how long it took, but he realized something was wrong again: if he was in that corridor before, it meant that they had just started fighting, and no one showed any illusion ability at this time.
He is still under the illusion!
Then the Count of Orleans woke up again.
The severe cold had penetrated his heart - he only felt that his limbs were extremely stiff, and they would make a sour creaking sound if he moved a little. It was as if they were not flesh and blood, but joints filled with sand, making it difficult to move.
Just like a doll.
He appeared in the cold white mist.
At this time, even Yassen hadn't appeared yet.
——This must be the source of illusion!
He had fallen into an illusion from the very beginning! Everything he remembered was false!
With this in mind, the Count of Orleans did not plan to disperse the white mist this time, but planned to sneak in it and wait for an opportunity to ambush the illusionist.
But thinking about it, he felt that his body was losing temperature very quickly and frost marks were forming.
Damn it, when was it...
——Which one is true?!
As he thought this, his thinking came to a standstill again.
In a daze, Count Orleans seemed to see countless versions of himself.
The self that was burned, the self that was frozen, the self that was cut in half.
The self cut into pieces by the shadow, the self purified by the holy light...
...and myself who is deeply trapped in a dream and unable to extricate myself.
Like a rotating kaleidoscope, countless possibilities are intertwined in my heart.
——At this time.
Aiwass, who was outside the hallucination, had already put away his scythe.
He was crouching in front of the Moonchild ice sculpture that was shining with rainbow light and cut into two parts. He stretched out his glowing right hand to touch the ice sculpture's head - he was reading the other person's illusion.
At this time, the dagger Sarastro was still being knocked to the ground in the distance, while Yassen, who had been knocked down, had just stood up from the ground.
The illusion, as deep as the sea, disappeared without a trace when Yassen put the dagger Sarastro back into its sheath.
"You have to practice your sword skills, Yassen."
Aiwass said leisurely: "Otherwise, I think your father might have a problem with you - letting the family sword fly out so easily. You'd better check if there are any gaps in it."
"No way..."
Yasen blurted out, but then his voice became weaker because he also thought of this possibility.
He drew out his dagger uncertainly: "No way...? Hey...it's actually true..."
Although there is no problem with the sword body, a piece of the gem on the scabbard was indeed knocked off. There is a silver ornament in the shape of a bull's head, which also shows obvious signs of friction.
Yasen knew that the texture of silver was too soft. It was normal for it to be damaged when it was thrown away by such an impact... But the sword blade was not reinforced by the preservation technique?!
"...What's wrong with him, Aiwass?"
On the side, Sherlock frowned and asked doubtfully.
He didn't know the ability of Star Ice.
In his opinion, the end of this battle was extremely abrupt and caught people off guard——
After the Earl of Orleans knocked the dagger away with a stick, the hallucination like a wave enveloped everyone.
But immediately afterwards, Aiwass condensed a shield falling from the sky - if a solid ice wall shining with colorful lights could be called a shield - blocking Yassen and the Count of Orleans.
The Count of Orleans, who was trapped in a hallucination, could not see the ice wall at all.
He whipped the ice wall hard - and then, his body suddenly stopped moving. The ice wall, like a cut diamond, spread towards him, enveloping him in the blink of an eye.
But Aiwass just stepped forward and waved the sickle extremely lightly——
There was no resistance, no flicking of the knife or dodge.
The Count of Orleans, who was frozen into an ice sculpture, was cut into two pieces in just an instant.
In the blink of an eye, the wound withered, lost color, and turned into a gray-white stone sculpture. And the traces of petrification were like crystals gradually precipitating in the test tube, gradually spreading towards the inside of the ice sculpture.
...This is the fifth energy level?
The enemy barely even made an effective attack and was defeated by them?
Sherlock felt a little unreal for a moment.
"He..."
Aiwass chuckled, but his eyes were cold and indifferent: "I am reincarnating in an endless cycle of nightmares."
"Is he still alive?"
"No, he is already dead. It's just that he hasn't realized this yet... so he is kept alive by the Box of Nothingness. When he wakes up from hallucinations again and again, he will get closer and closer to the reality.
"But before that, he will probably lose his determination to live."
The more crazy he becomes, the more he reveals his ugliness, and the more he refuses to die... the more he will be abandoned by the box of nothingness and approach death.
But the more he wakes up, the closer he gets to the reality that he is dead——