After completely losing control, Evelyn’s stiff body immediately crashed down onto the carpet of decaying leaves.
Jeremy nimbly took a long stride forward, wrapping his arm around her waist to catch her, and then gently leaned his teammate’s back against a nearby ancient tree trunk.
Right at this moment, Lucius suddenly spoke up: "Since Captain has cleared the way, I also want to give it a try."
As soon as he finished speaking, he did not hesitate, directly reaching out to grab a light blue positioning thread hovering nearby.
Jeremy glanced at the color of that thread, his eyes widening in astonishment. The blue hue of this thread was one degree darker than the one Evelyn had just chosen. This meant that the rank of that phantom had already touched the boundary of level three.
Was this freak truly insane?! Lucius’s own realm was only at Novice five stars; clashing with a spiritual entity with such a massive power gap carried an unimaginably huge risk of having his soul swallowed.
Jeremy rubbed the space between his eyebrows, his helpless gaze pinned tightly on the other party’s figure.
But contrary to his prediction of a scene of agonizing struggle, he only saw that Lucius, after opening his barrier to lure the phantom into his body, did not display any haste or panic. He extremely calmly pulled a gold-threaded woven magic carpet from his spatial ring, laying it over the dirty ground before elegantly sitting down cross-legged.
Jeremy: "..."
He had vaguely realized it since daytime, but this aristocratic dandy seemed to suffer from an excessive cleanliness obsession, to the point where, even with his life hanging by a thread, he still had to maintain his flawless noble image.
Jeremy stood with his arms crossed, intending to observe just how terribly this guy would react after being invaded by a high-tier phantom. However, he was astonished to discover: even though Lucius was in a state of being forcibly possessed by an evil entity, the amplitude of his body’s spasms or twisting was incredibly small, almost negligible.
If it weren’t for Jeremy’s sharp spiritual power noticing the guy’s hands trembling slightly, and the blue veins bulging on his forehead, which was beading with cold sweat from exerting his utmost effort to suppress it, Jeremy would have almost thought that the phantom hadn’t successfully invaded yet...
It was now around two in the morning.
Lucius and Evelyn had both sunk deep into a state of unconsciousness, imprisoned in fierce psychological illusions. Jeremy was originally worried that Leon and Phoenix would also be struck by the whim to play a game of collective suicide, but fortunately, those two guys still maintained enough sanity to restrain their instincts.
Jeremy let out a soft sigh of relief.
Four people simultaneously falling into a paralyzed state was truly too massive a risk. If a magic beast ambushed them while they were comatose, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to protect himself and escape alone. But to carry the burden of protecting four bodies utterly devoid of any capability to resist would truly be a pipe dream.
"Sss sss sss!"
Sharp friction sounds suddenly echoed around the silent forest. Jeremy immediately spun around, casting his gaze toward the source of the sound, and instantly recognized it as the area where the deep red positioning threads were located.
In the hidden angle of the light, Phoenix was silently dealing with the small number of vengeful spirits that had just surfaced.
Jeremy swept a comprehensive glance around. The vast majority of the positioning thread network nearby was light blue, connected to garbage phantoms that possessed no fatal physical damage. As for the vengeful spirits—turbid entities formed from resentment and negativity—their numbers were significantly fewer; visual observation estimated there were only around a dozen or so.
Seeing that Lucius and Evelyn’s conditions still showed no signs of abnormal outbreaks, Jeremy drew his blade and stepped forward to assist Phoenix in clearing the obstructing vengeful spirits. Leon stood in the back, in charge of standing guard, ensuring there were no other ambush movements on the perimeter.
Two hours passed as slowly as torture.
Lucius and Evelyn still showed no signs of waking up.
Perhaps because they were dragged too deep into the mire of negative dreams, both of their complexions gradually became as pale as wax. Cold sweat continuously dotted their foreheads, their breathing grew faint, and their physical conditions plummeted as time went by.
Right at this moment, Leon frowned and issued a warning: "The magic radar indicates two level-three magic wolves are approaching from a distance of 500 meters. If we wait for a maximum of five more minutes and these two still haven’t broken the illusion themselves, we will be forced to use coercive measures to wake them up."
Each individual’s threshold for enduring negative emotions varied; Jeremy could not accurately judge the extent to which their minds were being corroded by the shadows.
But being imprisoned in there for two full hours, aside from the reason that the invading phantom entity possessed a higher realm than themselves—which extended the time for constructing the dreamscape—there was another fatal cause: it was highly likely they had been assimilated by the hallucination, unaware that they were living in a dream woven by demons.
After all, in this world, not everyone possessed a physical vessel containing two separate souls like he did.
That garbage phantom from earlier definitely could never have expected, even until the moment it was chained by the neck, that the tragic dreamscape it painstakingly reconstructed from the original owner’s memories, to Jeremy’s foreign consciousness... was actually exactly like sitting in a movie theater watching a 3D documentary.
At most, it brought about a bit of fleeting emotional turmoil, but it could absolutely never cause him to lose his rationality or get lost.
But for Lucius and Evelyn—who were immersing themselves in the darkness of their own pasts—the probability of sinking deep and losing their consciousness was extremely high.
The five-minute countdown passed in the blink of an eye. Jeremy was just about to reach out and channel bursting magic power to forcibly shatter their mental barriers, when suddenly, both of them snapped their eyes open almost simultaneously.
Evelyn’s face was as pale as paper. From the corners of her eyes, bright red blood seeped out, rolling down her cheeks exactly like dazzling trails of bloody tears.
On the other side, a streak of dark red blood was also quietly seeping from Lucius’s pale lips. His icy emerald phoenix eyes, usually still, were currently laced with bloodshot veins and overflowing with a sharp, cruel, murderous intent that had not yet fully dissipated...
Jeremy was truly brought to a halt for a beat by the extreme state of these two teammates.
He quickly took out a potion vial, walked over in front of Evelyn—whose vitality depletion was the most severe—and said in a deep voice: "Chug this coagulant potion first."
Evelyn lightly lowered her bloodstained eyelashes, not refusing at all: "Thank you, Captain."
"It’s nothing."
After all, this method of gambling with one’s life was initiated by him; Jeremy naturally did not want to see them suffer internal injuries due to the remnants of the illusion, affecting the next combat plan.
Waiting until her breathing gradually steadied, Jeremy then began to probe: "Right before your consciousness returned, what happened inside there? I didn’t expect the mental pressure to be so severe that it caused the physical body to experience a hemorrhagic backlash like this."
Evelyn used the back of her hand to wipe away the streak of bloody tears on her cheek, explaining in a flat tone:
"To break the cycle of the dreamscape, I directly minced that phantom’s entity to pieces right inside my sea of consciousness. The eradication process caused the residual mental shockwaves to rebound outward. The injury is not considered severe; my magic power will automatically regulate it quickly."
"It’s good that you’re fine." Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief.
But immediately, from behind his back, Lucius’s deep, melodious voice rang out, reeking of sarcasm: "Our Captain... is indeed biased toward beauties."
Considering the heaven-shaking slap from earlier, Jeremy decided to tolerate his bizarre temper. He turned around, took another vial of medicine from his ring, and held it out in front of Lucius: "Here, stop talking nonsense and drink it."
Lucius lowered his eyes slightly, lazily glancing at the liquid sloshing inside the glass vial in Jeremy’s hand.
Pitch black, thick as mud, looking no different from a fatal poison vial.
Lucius frowned, expressing dissatisfaction: "Why is her medicine a beautiful, brilliant blue, while mine is this hideous pitch-black stuff?" He clicked his tongue, deliberately drawing out the final syllable: "Captain... you truly favor women over men."
"?"
Jeremy was completely speechless. He truly hadn’t expected that even at this stage, this aristocratic dandy still had the spare energy to scrutinize the color of a potion vial. The murderous intent on his face turned icy, and he decisively withdrew his hand: "If you have so much to say, then just damn well starve. Actually, I didn’t want to lend it to you anyway."
Lucius let out a soft, hoarse chuckle. He leaned forward slightly, his movement fast as lightning, snatching the potion vial Jeremy was about to put away: "Since you’ve already offered it right to my hand, why pull it back? Things that are given are by default mine."
Jeremy couldn’t be bothered to react to the other party’s shamelessness, issuing a command through gritted teeth: "The radar indicates magic beasts are closing in; pack up your things and let’s get out of here first."
Hearing the order, Phoenix silently recalled the entire network of positioning threads hovering around.
After agreeing to move, Jeremy led the way to open the path. The other four guys also didn’t bother asking about the destination, simply silently maintaining the formation closely behind.
About an hour later, the group had completely shaken off the magic beast pack’s detection range, and luckily found a relatively secluded limestone cave.
After using patches of dense weeds to completely camouflage the entrance, Jeremy proceeded deep inside and kindled a fire for warmth. He sat cross-legged, resuming the unfinished topic from earlier, directing his eyes toward Lucius: "Just now, you also chose the method of crushing that phantom within your consciousness, which is why you suffered a hemorrhagic backlash, right?"
Lucius gave a bland nod: "Yeah."
"So ultimately... did your spiritual power thresholds actually break through?" This was the result Jeremy cared about the most.
Lucius rested his chin on his hand, his phoenix eyes reflecting the blazing red fire, his tone lazy yet carrying clear confirmation: "Yes. Although extreme, this method is indeed incredibly effective."
Evelyn also nodded in agreement, simultaneously offering an analytical perspective: "However, the acquired power is quite explosive. If we had the additional support of herbs with sedative properties that fortify the spiritual power roots, like the Moonflower Vine Leaf, to regulate it, the assimilation efficiency would be much more perfect."
Moonflower Vine Leaf...
Jeremy’s mechanical brain immediately extracted information regarding this rare and exotic herb. Herbs possessing characteristics that directly impacted the nervous system were extremely picky about their growing environment, and the process of extracting them into pharmaceuticals also required incredibly complex preparation techniques; therefore, their value on the black market always remained at an astronomical level.
Every individual of this plant species emitted a slightly hallucinogenic fragrance, so occasionally they were even pressed by the alchemical circle into luxurious essential perfume oils, exclusively supplied to the capital’s aristocracy to use for pleasure.
Wait a minute...
Now that he noticed it, ever since stepping into this cave, a bizarre fragrance seemed to have been faintly lingering in the air, appearing and disappearing. This scent was refreshingly cool yet carried a slight mustiness, completely different from the artificial fragrances emanating from the clothes or Holy Artifacts of his four teammates. It bore a resemblance to the purity of lily of the valley.
Jeremy narrowed his eyes slightly, casting his vision toward the deep, dark corner inside the cave.
He stood up and strode toward the cliff face unreached by the firelight, reaching out to summon a blazing streak of magical fire.
Very quickly, under the flickering light, a dense patch of vines clinging tightly to the rough cliff face immediately caught his eye. The leaves bore a silver-gray color akin to cold moonlight, their shapes curved like a crescent moon. Interwoven among the leaves were blooming flower buds, bearing a deep, abyss-like blue color exactly like a chasm at the bottom of the ocean.
Perhaps because the original owner had frantically immersed himself in potion-making while alive, the very moment his pupils took in the image of these flower buds, clear analytical lines of attributes automatically popped into Jeremy’s head.
Frostmoon Vine - Level-six demonic herb.
A fake, refreshing fragrance. From the shape of the leaf blade to the color of the flower bud when in full bloom... every identifying characteristic perfectly replicated the Moonflower Vine Leaf. This camouflage was so perfect that it was almost indistinguishable to the naked eye.
But... instead of possessing sedative properties, the latex secreted from the Frostmoon vine and calyx concealed a highly toxic poison that ravaged the body. If just a single drop of sap touched flesh, the internal organs would immediately freeze stiff as if petrified.
On the lighter side, the nervous system would paralyze, leading to temporary blindness; on the heavier side... magic power would shatter, resulting in instantaneous death.